21 Days of Rubbish: Leave No Trace

For 21 days, I will be collecting garbage on my daily walks and sharing with you a few photos of my fascinating findings, my captivating collection, some garbage-specific research, and numerous thoughts about the experience.

I originally intended to write about the local landfill today, but instead, I decided to share exclusively on my recent finds because I want these particulars to have your undivided attention.  Stay tuned.  Next time I write about my breathtaking adventure to the landfill.

Day 2 – August 19, 2010
Garbage Catch of the Day

Today I hit up our local beach.  I didn’t feel like picking up dirty trash on the streets.  Here’s what I found (see photo above):

34 Butts

2 glass bottles:  Stella Artois and Blue Moon (seriously, I had higher ideals for folks who drink Stella Artois and Blue Moon)

4 cans:  1 full, yes, full can of Coors, 1 empty Coors, 2 Four Lokos (I never even heard of this malt before today)

Dog poop – too much to tally

1 Plastic Water Bottle:  Dasani

1 pair of socks

½ bucket of small pieces of plastic and paper

And the most interesting catch of today?

78 Nails

Yep, nails.  Sharp nails several of them rusted.  Many fire-building beach-goers use pallets to build their fires.  Pallets are put together with nails and large staples.  When these fire-building beach-goers burn the pallets, the remains are ashes and nails.  Lots of nails.  These 78 nails came from one fire.  On the beach.  The fire-building beach-goers depart and leave behind these dangerous obstacles.  Children and dogs run on the beach.  The tide comes in and washes away the nail-ridden sand.  The nails end up in the water, in seaweed, in kelp, and some get consumed by marine life.  I’m assuming these fire-building beach-goers are totally unconscious about the residual effects of their unintentional displays of ignorance.  The moral of the story:  Don’t burn pallets or anything that has harmful residue.  Not to mention the general pollution caused by burning wood.

I received a secondary gain from my garbage collecting efforts today.  Several people stopped to investigate as I was rummaging through sand to pick out the nails.  Many of them sincerely thanked me, one of whom was a little girl with bare feet. She shared her concern of stepping on a nail and was grateful I was helping to protect her.  Very sweet.

Day 3 – August 20, 2010

Garbage Catch of the Day

I returned to the same beach as yesterday and, much to my chagrin, found cigarette butts in the same place I picked them up from only 24 hours earlier.

1 plastic lid from a Jack-in-the-Box container

1 chew container with some chew still in it

1 paper receipt:  here’s a shout out to Mark M (name removed to protect the innocent)– Pick up your trash!

1 plastic cup

1 paper cup

1 ginormous beer bottle:  Miller Genuine Draft 40 ounce (What MGD drinker, were you too drunk to find the recycle bin that was a whole 10 yards from where you dumped the bottle?)

2 Starbucks Venti plastic containers: Okay Starbucks people, you’re paying 5 bucks for a drink, I can assume you know better than to dump your garbage on the ground, no?

4 batches of dog poo

22 butts

1 rusty paint thinner can

2 drink caps

2 different flip flops

1 shoe (I put this in a pile of other homeless shoes with the hopes someone will find it)

2 straws

½ a bucket of small pieces of plastic, some styrofoam and wrappers of various assortments

And the most interesting catch of today?

Human Feces

I know.  Disgusting, right?

1 piece of clothing with human poo.  I repeat human poo.

5 napkins with human poo.

These poo finds were at two different places.  Granted, they may have come from the same irritable bowel, but I suspect not.

I didn’t realize the napkins had human feces until I began pulling them out of rocks.  It was the stench that first brought this repulsive find to my attention.  Then, in a confusing moment when all my senses aligned, I gained a regrettable awareness of my ill-fated situation.  Fortunately there were some fire-building beach-goers (using regular wood instead of pallets) nearby who let me put the stinky, stained remnants of someone’s inappropriate release on their fire.

Only moments later, I came upon another upsetting, gut-wrenching, gag-inducing display of public feces.  According to my now well-defined detective skills, this individual was at a loss for something with which to wipe, so she (presumably given the dress) used her clothing.   My results show she lost a load of fecal weight in addition to her clothes.

Hey plein air poopers – your public display of feces is a disgrace to my species.

Sadly, later in the evening, while hanging out at sunset, the husband and I saw a sea lion dead and floating in the tide.  My heart sank.  How did this lovely being die?  Was it due to consuming nails?  Was I not diligent enough?  I’m aware he could have died from any number of ways, none of which having anything to do with human activity.  But given my knowledge that scientists find sharp objects, or pieces of plastic, or general debris in the bodies of marine life postmortem, I couldn’t help but have a sense of hopelessness.

As we were heading home, we came across a couple of young guys drinking beer on the cliffs.  I reminded them to please Pack Their Trash.  I had never heard that expression prior to living in Santa Cruz. Does it exist elsewhere?  Essentially it means, pick up your garbage and dispose of it properly.

Day 4 – August 21, 2010

My (and the husband’s) Garbage Catch of the Day

A local organization, Save Our Shores, holds monthly beach cleanups, and today the cleanup was at a beach close to home.  Save Our Shores (SOS), a nonprofit, has programs that deal with a wide array of issues, from marine debris to water quality. They aim to create thriving ecosystems.   Next week I have an interview with SOS to learn more about their efforts to protect our oceans.

During today’s two-hour beach cleanup I encountered some interesting folks having a similar desire for a cleaner world, particularly cleaner beaches and oceans.  One of the lead volunteers, an SOS Sanctuary Steward, was Steve Pleich.

Pleich, who also happens to be running for city council, is a fervent advocate for the environment. This I like.  He began volunteering as an SOS Sanctuary Steward about eighteen months ago.  His inspiration for volunteering stems from a long-time interest in environmental causes, and a simple love for Santa Cruz and the Monterey Bay.  He claims that people who are connected to the Bay are in many ways defined by it.

Pleich believes we can save the planet one day at a time, but the first day has to be today. He continued on about how, for many locals, it doesn’t necessarily occur to them that they are helping, but they are.  Each time someone picks up a piece of litter, they are taking part in a greater effort.

Pleich advocates that a cigarette abatement fee could aid litter relief efforts by using the fee to fund organizations who help make for cleaner beaches and oceans.  Cigarette butts are mostly filters.  Most filters are made out of plastic (not cotton like one may presume) and have nonbiodegradable parts, or at the very least, parts that take many years to break down.  This increases the risk of sea birds and other marine animals ingesting this rubbish and ultimately perishing.  Cigarette butts swell up in their stomachs and give birds and other animals a false sense of feeling full.  They ultimately starve to death.  Additionally, butts are toxic.  You can read an interesting article about the many issues regarding cigarette butt pollution from Sea Forever.

Pleich and another Sanctuary Steward, Haig White (more on White and his Pacific Gyre environmental efforts in a future post) shared how, at a past river cleanup, with only four volunteers, they picked up 1024 butts.  And at a recent cleanup, twelve volunteers, in one hour, picked up 1600 butts.

While I was talking with Pleich and Haig, three young guys emerged with their garbage collection.  Aaron, Felip and Ben are ages 17, 16 and 16 respectively.  All three were participating in community service, a requirement of their school.  I inquired about their choosing this particular community service – beach cleanup – and what most inspired them to participate.  Overall, cleaning up the beach seemed like the most fun service for them, with one guy having participated in it in the past.  Aaron shared how it felt pretty good for people to congratulate us.  They said how kayakers passing by thanked them.  It seemed as if the gratitude they received was rewarding.  Personally, I felt hopeful and grateful to see these young guys take action.

I then happened upon another group of young guys climbing around the rocks on a garbage treasure-hunt of sorts (those are my words).  They were doing their service hours with the Boy Scouts.  I spoke with each of them, asking the same question: What inspires you to cleanup the beach?

Nico, 15, I don’t want to live in a place full of crap. Nico appeared the most passionate out of all of them with regard to maintaining clean beaches, but to their credit, these boys exhibited environmental awareness.  It was refreshing.

Justin, 13, wants to keep the environment clean and to treat it with respect.  Very impressive.

Bryce, 9, a friend of another boy scout who was just along to help out, shared, I want to clean the beach so I can have a clean beach to play on.  Sweet.

Blake, 11, wants to have service hours so he can get rank.  He likes playing on a clean beach and he believes a beach cleanup shows that he cares.  Well done.

Roberta, a Scout parent, was helping out today because she supports the kids and their efforts to live their motto. And the Boy Scout motto?  Leave No Trace. Simply translated, (while camping or engaging in other activities) everything is picked up and they try to make the place better than what it was when they arrived.  This reminded me of the value of organizations like the Boy and Girl Scouts in teaching kids responsibility and helping them evolve an awareness of their surroundings.

As the husband and I were completing our journey and heading back to the sign-in table, he with his giant orange bag and I with a blue bucket of garbage, I realized that we had no fascinating finds.

Jellyfish or Plastic Bag? Turtles and other sea creatures who dine on jellyfish also don't know the difference.

It was the usual stuff:

Lots of cans and bottles – mostly beer, and almost all of them found in the rocks:  Pacifico, Tacate, Pabst, Diet Pepsi and Aquafina water

Loads of butts – more than 100

Incredible amounts of small pieces of plastic

I actually found three plastic shovels and a nice flip-flop – these things I put on a rock near the entrance with the high hopes they will get reused.

Nichole Smith and Her Drawers

Luckily, we encountered a woman, Nichole Smith, who wins the award for most fascinating find of the day:

In addition to plastic batwings, Smith found two drawers.  The first drawer was the kind that fits in a dresser, and the second was the kind that most people wear. Perhaps the undies were originally in the drawer when it was discarded?  I doubt it.  Smith shared some other interesting finds from past cleanups, including a syringe and unspent bullets.

As we were unloading and separating our garbage, I had a moment to chat with Martel Anderson, another Sanctuary Steward, and the 2010 Save our Shores volunteer of the year.  Anderson has been involved with SOS since 2008.  She recently held a private fundraising effort for her 50^th birthday.  In lieu of a big party, she wrote letters to her friends and family asking for donations to SOS.  She raised $600.00.  Such an honorable, creative, and fulfilling way to celebrate a milestone birthday.  Well done and thank you.

Today the volunteers collected 48 pounds of recycling and 54 pounds of trash.  Two hours of minimal effort.  While I am happy to participate, I cannot relieve the gnawing feeling of knowing that, as we were cleaning up, people were pouring onto the beach.  What will it look like tomorrow, even later today?  I was walking up the road to our car, and a plastic bag was blown in my path.  Surely it was recently discarded being all new and clean.  Okay, maybe it was accidentally blown from someone’s picnic site.  Carelessness is the only word I can muster up for the person who let the bag out of his/her sight.  And still, after talking with the many volunteers today – especially the young ones – I hold the glimmer of hope that there are people who care and who are making a difference every day.  My standing ovation goes to all the people who leave no trace.

The activist is not the man who says the river is dirty.  The activist is the man who cleans up the river.

~Ross Perot

Other Articles in the Series:

21 days of Rubbish part I

21 days of Rubbish part III

21 days of Rubbish part IV

21 days of Rubbish part V

21 days of Rusbbish Part VI

21 dayd of Rubbish part VII

21 days of Rubbish part VIII

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