San Diego’s beaches attract hundreds of thousands of people every Fourth of July. They spend the day eating and drinking with friends and family enjoying a day of patriotic festivities. When they leave, they take the memories, but leave the trash ” tons of it.
Anyone who has ever been to the beach on July 5 can attest to the massive amounts of garbage that overflow the trash cans, turning the once beautiful beaches into a shore-side landfill.
To combat the problem, the San Diego Surfrider Foundation is collaborating with Sun Diego Boardshops to the conduct this year’s Morning After Mess beach clean up event. The Surfrider Foundation invites the public to come and help out with the cleaning effort from 9 a.m. to noon. Last year, more than 1,000 volunteers collected about 4,000 pounds of trash, according to Surfrider Foundation Committee Member Ken David.
“It’s a huge problem. People just go down, they party; there are cans, six-pack wrappers, bags ” just all sorts of trash left where it is instead of people picking it up like I’m sure they would do at home or want someone else to do coming into their home,” David said.
Because of this problem, the Surfrider Foundation is asking for help, but also remind volunteers to bring bags from home and put full bags of trash in the cans scattered all over the beach.
The event will begin at 9 a.m. at the Ocean Beach Pier, Belmont Park in Mission Beach, the foot of Pacific Beach Drive in Pacific Beach, Del Mar at 15th Street (Powerhouse Park), South Carlsbad State Beach (Ponto), Oceanside South Jetty and La Jolla Shores.
San Diego City Council members Donna Frye and Kevin Faulconer will be speaking at the end of Pacific Beach Drive in Pacific Beach. At the event, there will be free giveaways and participants will be able to win a surfboard from Sun Diego Boardshops to be raffled off at each location. The first 80 participants will receive a free T-shirt from the Surfrider Foundation and all necessary equipment will be provided for volunteers that show their support.
Whatever number of volunteers, Surfrider stresses that the solution to the problem does not lie with those willing to come out and help, but that people enjoying the long weekend at the beach should be aware of the messy impact people can have.
“The thing that we would love is to not have to have this [event],” David said. “Lets just not mess up the beach because we all love it. That’s why we go there.”