California Coastal Clean-Up Day

Scouts on duty

Our stretch of the Bay to clean up

We got up this morning and drove out to Ballena Isle to join the local efforts of the statewide Coastal Clean-Up Day. Our local contingent was bolstered by several troops of Boy Scouts, as well as yacht club members and sailors and local Alameda residents such as ourselves. Armed with buckets, bags and gloves we trolled our designated areas of the island for trash (aka anything man-made). You'd be surprised at how many bottles, fishing line, foam, cigarette butts, clothing, balloons, random bags and food containers were wedged into those rocks to the left. Or maybe you wouldn't! In any case, two of us picked up 21 lbs in an hour and a half. Hundreds more pounds of human-generated debris were collected by the rest of the crew. Frightening, especially when you consider this is regarded as a pretty clean area. In any case, it felt good to help out. It will feel better to keep see more folks keeping their trash both to a minimum and out of the water. Kudos to the California Coast Commission for organizing the event, and to everyone who got up early on a Saturday to participate. Coastal Clean-Up Day is the state's largest volunteer event!