San Rafael, CA – More than 2,000 excited and hardworking volunteers turned out to pick up trash on Marin’s beaches, waterways, and trails recently at the 30th annual California Coastal Cleanup Day. Nearly a quarter of those volunteers collected debris at one of eight Marin County Parks and Open Space locations.
“I was really pleased with the high turnout this year,” said County Parks Volunteer Coordinator Greg Reza. “My first Coastal Cleanup Day was in 2004, and since then I’ve seen the increase in participation and the decrease in garbage.”
Running a successful Coastal Cleanup Day operation is indeed a business of diminishing returns. Decreased trash yields year to year means that Marin’s long-term participation in California’s largest volunteer event is paying off: the waterways and beaches are cleaner.
Still, on September 20, volunteers at County park sites managed to cart off 722 pounds of trash and 108 pounds of recyclable material. The Richardson Bay site had the highest yield with 380 pounds, but the McInnis Park group covered the largest area, traversing six miles in their cleanup. Site Captain Kirk Schroeder’s group at Hal Brown Park in Greenbrae had the highest participation with 152 volunteers.
For younger participants, a highlight of the cleanup each year is the chance to find an item worthy of making it on the “strange objects” list – a category included in every site’s cleanup stats. Some favorites from the County Park sites this year were a Styrofoam skull, a shotgun casing, and a working cell phone.
Reza’s favorite “strange object” of all time? A snow globe he found a few years ago at the Richardson Bay site. The snow globe originated from a church in the Sierra foothills, but the globe’s buoyancy had allowed it to float down the American River, out through the bay and onto its final resting place on the Tiburon bayfront. That is testimony, Reza said, to the importance of continuing to expand Coastal Cleanup Day to inland counties.
“Almost all counties [in California] are participating in Coastal Cleanup Day because the debris we’ve been picking up here on the coast and in the bay are not just from boats,” Reza said.
Reza and Schroeder were instrumental in organizing such a successful Coastal Cleanup Day this year, and the event is just one of many volunteer opportunities with Marin County Parks and Open Space. Contact Schroeder to find out more about opportunities available for you and your family at County Parks, and Reza to find out more about volunteering in Marin County Open Space.