A Local Beach Cleanup You May Not Have Known Existed
Written by Felix Martin ‘27
The beaches of Alameda are one of the largest in the East Bay. When the weather gets warm enough, these beaches are populated with crowds of people every weekend. Considering the amount of people using the public areas, litter accumulates often. Much washes ashore, while the nearby establishments of McDonald’s and Burger King exacerbate the problem further by not providing enough trash cans or enforcing littering policies. People get takeout and leave it on the beach. You may think that the beaches in Alameda are managed by the city, but they are not. They are controlled by the East Bay Regional Parks District, which only has a limited beach cleaning process.
Thankfully, once a week there is a nearby beach cleanup which many people attend. This takes place at the beach across from the South Shore Center every Thursday at 11am. The cleanups are led by my mother, Chase Martin, who has established the group. If you want to get more information or join her group, you can at her website. About two to five people come every week. On the group’s social media website Nextdoor, she wrote that: “[It] is a great way to help our community — by improving the health of the Bay and its wildlife. Plus it’s a good excuse for a bit of socialization and fresh air!” Cleaning the beaches helps protect the environment and this ongoing effort brings attention to pollution on our beaches.
However, the beach cleanups haven’t just been happening as of late, but have been ongoing for almost 4 years. In celebration and announcement for their 3rd anniversary, Chase Martin wrote that: “This ongoing effort, while small in scale, is making a real impact by removing about 2 tons of trash every year from our local Alameda beach. This trash (mostly plastics) would otherwise have polluted San Francisco Bay and the Pacific Ocean to eventually be ingested by wildlife and even enter our food chain.” As you can imagine, these little weekly efforts eventually add up to big things.
During the beach cleanup, supplies are essential. You mainly need non-disposable gardening gloves, a bag or bucket, and perhaps something to protect yourself from the weather. I’ve participated several times. In my experience, it was sunny and time-consuming, but the cool breeze and beach atmosphere made it peaceful. According to Betsy Mathieson, a long-time volunteer, “I participate in the beach cleanups to reduce human impacts on wildlife, to help make the beach a pleasant place for human visitors, and to prevent people from thinking it’s ok to leave their trash on the beach because other trash is there already. I enjoy the camaraderie of the beach cleanup group but also the meditative solitude of walking along the beach picking up trash, no matter how small the pieces.”
Since in the end, all these pieces of trash will end up going into the Bay, it’s easier to stop the pollution at the root of the problem. We can also help reduce the burden of work done by these volunteers by spreading the message to others to never litter the beach, and of course to never do so ourselves.
