Today’s post comes from ILACSD’s Development & Marketing Coordinator, Jessica Green!
There is still time to sign up to volunteer and be a part of San Diego’s biggest one day volunteer event dedicated to our local environment, but not much! Today is the last day to register to help out at one of 88 cleanup sites around San Diego County for Coastal Cleanup Day 2012.
Why should you get involved with Coastal Cleanup Day?
We’re reaching new communities.
This year we have 4 cleanup sites in communities that we’ve never reached before including Lindo Lake in Lakeside, and Flynn Springs Canyon Park in El Cajon. The local boating community is also pitching in at our two on the water cleanup sites at Sun Harbor Marina and Shelter Island. Volunteers are invited to bring their kayaks, canoes, etc. and will be given nets and special absorbent sheets that will allow them to collect trash in the water and along the hard to reach shore line, as well as absorb any gas or oil they find floating on the surface of the water.
We’re changing the way people think and act to protect the environment.
Engaging volunteers, especially children, in cleaning up their community gives them a greater sense of responsibility to protect it. Seeing all the trash and cigarette butts littering their favorite beach, bay, creek, or canyon will hopefully make them think twice before they litter themselves and to encourage those around them not to litter. Coastal Cleanup Day goes a step further than that though, our volunteers will count each and every piece of trash they pick up and report the totals back to us. This information will be tallied together with data from the other 53 California counties participating in Coastal Cleanup Day, as well as data from International Coastal Cleanup Day to be used to influence litter prevention legislation.
Local actions, global impact.
At the same time that we here in San Diego take on the task of cleaning up our local environment, hundreds of thousands of volunteers all over California, and all over the world, are doing the same in their communities as part of California Coastal Cleanup Day and International Coastal Cleanup Day.
Beach cleanups may be more fun, but inland sites need you more.
Even though the event is ‘Coastal’ Cleanup Day, we know that the majority of debris that ends up at the coast, started somewhere inland. San Diego’s vast watershed system is a virtual trash highway, shuttling litter and debris straight to the ocean through our creeks, rivers, and the storm water system. At our beach sites you’ll find plenty of trash, especially cigarette butts and tiny pieces of plastic and Styrofoam you probably never noticed were there. But at our inland sites is where you’ll find the big stuff, everything from plastic bottles and whole Styrofoam containers (which become those tiny pieces on the beach), to big things like car batteries, tires, and even the occasional chandelier. Check out the sites in green on our website who are still in desperate need of volunteers.
Can’t make it tomorrow? You can still help out.
And you don’t even have to get out of bed to do it! Grab your phone and text the word CLEAN to the number 80888 to donate $10 to I Love A Clean San Diego. Your gift will go straight to work cleaning up our community, and changing the behaviors that caused it to get dirty in the first place. Your one text message can help us remove 300 pounds of trash from your favorite beaches, bays, creeks, canyons, and open space areas!
