While most beach cleanup efforts focus solely on the coast, the popular Creek to Bay Cleanup doesn’t stop there. I Love A Clean San Diego’s eighth annual cleanup is set to take place Saturday, April 24 from 9 a.m. to noon at dozens of locations around San Diego. “Most of us live in the beach communities because we enjoy the lifestyles and enjoy our beaches,” said Morgan Justice-Black, outreach director for I Love A Clean San Diego (ILACSD). “While cleaning up what is there on our beaches is important, it’s also important to realize that the debris is originating at some of these inland locations and that’s where the real source of the problem is.” Nearly 5,000 volunteers will be scattered across 68 cleanup sites in the county, picking up assorted trash and debris from creeks, canyons and beaches. The Creek to Bay Cleanup will cover an estimated 150 miles of land. “It is three hours of your time that can make a big difference in the health of our community,” Justice-Black said. “Just three hours and you can really notice the difference from when you arrive to when you leave that day.” This year, the Creek to Bay Cleanup will reach an impressive and somewhat disturbing milestone. Since 2001, a total of 992,075 pounds of debris has been collected — which means the mark of 1 million pounds of trash will likely be eclipsed on Saturday. “The most common items that we find are things like cigarette butts, plastic bottles and caps and food wrappers,” Justice-Black said. “So imagine just how many cigarette butts and food wrappers we’re picking up to hit a million pounds.” There are two local cleanup sites in Ocean Beach — Dog Beach and Veterans’ Plaza at the Ocean Beach Pier. Justice-Black said the Dog Beach site is one of the most popular in the county. “We have a ton of people that call looking for dog-friendly sites,” Justice-Black said. “Ocean Beach is really the most dog-friendly.” If a local cleanup site is full, Justice-Black encourages those who want to participate to go online and look east to inland sites as close as Clairemont. According to last year’s statistics, volunteers at inland sites picked up an average of 80 pounds per person — nearly 20 times the amount picked up by the average coastal volunteer. “We encourage people to go to the source of the problem so that they’re making an impact on keeping their lifestyle going there,” Justice-Black said. In addition to sites on land, the Creek to Bay Cleanup has added a twist this year: an underwater dive site at the Embarcadero and an on-the-water cleanup site on the San Diego Bay. “Once debris gets into our ocean, it just kind of floats there unless the tide breaks it up,” Justice-Black said. “Some local environmental stewards decided to take matters into their own hands and will be taking out their boats to lend a hand.” To volunteer or for more information about the cleanup drive, visit www.creektobay.org. I Love A Clean San Diego is online at www.ilacsd.org.