This is Amanda Sousa’s 16th year helping organize Coastal Cleanup Day.
“Coastal Clean Up Day is my favorite day of the year,” Sousa says. “[It] just brings me so much joy talking to all the different people that come out for our event,” Sousa says.
For 42 years, people have been coming to San Diego’s coast with one goal: leave it cleaner than they found it.
Thousands of people coming together makes for a powerful sight. What they’re coming together to clean up is another story.
Cigarette butts. Beach toys. Single-use plastics — And as that plastic breaks down, it can become micro plastics, tiny fragments that can persist in the environment and be eaten by marine life.
Amanda says even the smallest pieces can have an impact, and volunteers don’t just pick up the trash, they keep track of it.
Through the Clean Swell app, volunteers record what they collect, creating data that go directly to the government.
Amanda tells me she’s seen the changes to the coast after implementing new laws, like San Diego’s 2008 beach alcohol ban and the 2016 ban on single-use plastic bag law.
“That also was a big impact on our coastlines because that contributed to so much excessive trash on the beaches specifically after holidays,” Sousa says.
Volunteers know their work on the sand can shape what happens next. It’s why they keep coming.
Last year, about 3,000 people participated in San Diego, removing 55,000 pounds of trash from the coast. This year they hope for an even bigger turnout.
“That process of coming out, doing something, recognizing a problem, communicating it to our local officials, and then making a change for the better, that's the beauty of our Country and of our State,” Sousa says.
