Looking for litter? Try your luck with us at a Shoreline Clean-Up, Saturday, July 19th. According to the California Coastal Commission, post-July 4th is the most polluted time for our public beaches and shores. We can prevent litter at the source by reducing our personal plastic use. By removing existing litter at a clean-up, we intervene to prevent some devastating impacts of plastic from taking hold. Every collected piece of litter is an item that won’t make its way to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, or into the belly of a bird, fish or sea mammal, and helps our public shores be beautiful, safe places for everyone to enjoy. We’re partnering with the Berkeley Marina to host this Shoreline Clean-Up, Saturday, July 19th, as part of our Plastic-Free July event series. There’s a bonus for participants: one volunteer participant at this event will win a pair of tickets to Jack Johnson’s concert at the Greek Theater on August 26th.
We will meet at the Shorebird Park Nature Center at 9am. Participants will turn in waivers, view a brief indoor presentation on the problems of plastics in the marine environment, and learn how to fill out the data cards. There will be a safety talk, and explanations of what is not recyclable, and where to put the trash you find.
At this point, we will set out as a group to clear trash from a particular area of the Berkeley marina shoreline. Clean-up ends at 11:30am, when we will return all unused materials, data cards, pencils and any borrowed tools or supplies to the Nature Center.
If you can, in the spirit of reducing plastic use, bring a reusable bucket or bin to collect the litter you find! For more details on this event, and for the contact info to register, click here. See you out there, plastic pollution preventers!
[Photo by luxomedia on Flickr]
