By Lauren Man
ERA had its first beach cleanup of the year at Will Rogers State Beach on a beautifully sunny Sunday. We started the cleanup near Patrick’s Roadhouse and slowly walked towards the lagoon, where we spotted a lot of sandpipers and other shore birds!
As we moved further away from the road, there was less trash. Most of the garbage we found was either cigarette butts or small bits of styrofoam, the former of which was the most commonly found type of beach litter in the world, according to International Coastal Cleanup.
We decided to search for trash near the lagoon, as waterways are major avenues for land-based trash to enter the ocean. In fact, according to the US Environmental Protection Agency, 80% of the marine debris found on beaches during surveys and cleanups comes from sources on land. Unsurprisingly, we found a lot of trash amongst the sea wrack coating the banks of the lagoon. It was good to know we stopped some garbage from entering the ocean.
After the cleanup, we tallied up the types of trash we found. Collectively, we picked up 16 pounds of trash, including 188 cigarette butts, 329 foam pieces, 25 glass pieces and 201 plastic pieces. Tallying the debris from beach cleanups is a great way to participate in citizen science and is integral to mitigating the problem of marine plastic pollution.
Although our bags weren’t filled to the brim with trash, we were still able to accomplish a great feat. The bulk of what we picked up was microplastics, which don’t seem as big of a problem as larger, more visible pieces of trash, but these small pieces of debris can be mistakenly ingested by marine life and birds.
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