Overview: Beach cleanups are a fun and easy way to volunteer your time by helping to keep our beaches and ocean clean!
Marine debris is more than an unsightly inconvenience for beach-bound vacationers or pleasure boaters; it’s one of the world’s most pervasive marine population problems. Through the simple process of moving from ship to sea, sewer to surf,or hand to sand, any manufactured material becomes marine debris. Cigarette butts, fishing line, diapers, tampon applicators, six-pack rings, bottles and cans, syringes, tires-the litany of litter is as varies as the products available in the global market place, but it all shares a common origin. At a critical decision point, someone, somewhere, mishandled it– either thoughtlessly or deliberately.Many people mistakenly believe that oceangoing vessels are the major source of marine debris. On the contrary, 60 to 80% of the trash that pollutes the world’s waters originates on land. Literally tons of it foul our beaches, main and kill marine animals and threaten water quality.
Objective: In honor of Earth Day, Kristi’s Hope sent out an open invite and encouraged families to spend the day outside, together while cleaning up our local beaches. Bags, hand sanitizer and a gorgeous view were provided.
Result: Several families showed up with gloves and buckets/bags ready to make a difference, ready to clean up our beaches and make it a safe place for families and wild life to enjoy.
* The ocean is the largest life-sustaining resource on our planet.
* Plastic marine debris affects at least 267 species world wise, including 86% of all seal turtle species, 44% of all sea bird species and 43% of marine mammal species.
* Plastic marine debris takes hundreds of years to break down and may never fully biodegrade.
* Birds,fish, and mammals often mistake plastic and other debris for food, which can lead to fatal consequences.
* Many animals have difficulty digesting plastic, so the plastic remains in the animals stomach, which makes the animal feel full and can lead to the animal starving to death.
* Each man,woman and child in the U.S. produces 3-7lbs of trash each day.
* During a recent summer, Orange County collected enough garbage from 6 miles of beach to fill 10 garbage trucks full of trash every week.
* For every item we recycle or reuse, that’s one less piece of trash that can become a part of the marine debris cycle threatening people and wildlife.
* Bolsa Chica & Huntington State Beach employ a garbage company that hand sorts all of our trash for recyclables, so that you do not have to worry about sorting the recyclables that you pick up.
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