By Founder and President Kurt Lieber
7 ½ people took a straw poll today, take a look at the results!
Even though the rains seem to be slowing down lately, the beaches are still bearing the brunt of all the debris that has been flushed into our waterways and onto the beaches and estuaries.
So, armed with trash pickers, buckets and bags a few of us headed back to Bolsa Chica State Park on Saturday, February 23rd.
Small but Mighty Crew
We had been here the weekend before, and started where we left off, in the area by Tower 17. Joining us this day were: Lisa Davis, Krista Espino, Kent Morris, and Linda Nicholes. We met at 9am and started working the high-tide line and moved northward along the beach.
Krista had a baby recently, but that didn’t stop her. She brought 5-month-old Elijah along. Talk about getting a head start! He can’t even walk, but he was gladly showing Mom where all the stuff was. Welcome to the ODA crew, Elijah!
We were soon joined by Danny, who joined in the fun last weekend when he canceled his day of surfing to helped us out. He was watching the surf cam at home and saw us on the screen with buckets in hand -- how cool is that?! He grabbed his son, Adrian, and brought him along as well. So, now we had a team of 7 and ½, moving up and down the beach talking trash.
Rapid Refuse Reduction
It was another gorgeous day, and while visibility wasn’t quite as nice as the prior weekend, you could still see Catalina, and the snow-covered mountains. Can’t beat Southern California in the winter!
We did our best for the next three hours to make the beach as clean as possible, and picked up thousands of pieces of plastic, wrappers, shoes, flip flops, 6 syringes, liquor bottles, bottle caps, and “some” straws.
Some straws?!?! I couldn’t believe how many we were seeing. Like nothing I had ever witnessed before.
We called it quits around noon. We had covered about 1,500 feet of the beach and were really pleased with how different it looked. Total weight doesn’t sound like much, 182 pounds, but when you think about how much a straw weighs, it translates in to a LOT of stinkin’ straws…
The rangers at the park waived our parking fee again. Thank you!
We’ll be out there again this weekend, and if any of you want to pitch in, drop us a line at volunteer@oceandefenders.org and we’ll let you know more specifics.
Straw free, forever more!
Kurt
