I Love A Clean San Diego’s Clean Beach Coalition will place 200 temporary waste and recycling bins on San Diego’s busiest beaches and bays over long holiday weekends to handle the expected excess litter. Now in its 16th year, these temporary bins placed by the Clean Beach Coalition have helped keep 3.5 million pounds of litter off of San Diego beaches and out of the ocean.

Over the busy holiday weekends, San Diego beaches see a spike in visitors, both locals and tourists and permanent trash receptacles often overflow with large amounts of litter. To alleviate the excess and reduce marine debris and pollution, the Coalition places bins along San Diego’s most heavily trafficked beaches: Mission Beach, Mission Bay, and Pacific Beach over Memorial Day, Fourth of July, and Labor Day weekends.

Marine debris poses a serious health threat to local wildlife and negatively impacts water quality. Single-use plastics are the most dangerous pollutant, which breaks down into microplastics. In turn, microplastics can be ingested by animals and humans. In 2022, nearly 70% of all the litter removed during I Love A Clean San Diego’s community and countywide cleanups was a form of plastic or single-use item.
I Love A Clean San Diego encourages beachgoers to prepare ahead of time to reduce the amount of waste! You can help keep our beaches clean by replacing disposable single-use items with reusable items:

• Instead of Styrofoam containers or single-use plastic cups of any kind, use hard plastic items, metal coolers, insulated bags, and beach-safe cups as alternatives.
• Eliminate sandwich bags and food wrappers by shopping in bulk and packing reusable food storage containers.
• Refuse plastic utensils and do not take them from restaurants. Instead, bring and use reusable options such as bamboo or silverware from home!
• Avoid plastic bags, and swap them with a stylish tote or canvas bag.

Additional information about the Clean Beach Coalition is available at CleanBeachCoalition.org. For more information, to volunteer or donate, visit CleanSD.org or call 619-291-0103. Connect with us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram , and LinkedIn.