California State Parks Participates In The State’s Largest Annual Volunteer Event – The California Coastal Cleanup Day

California State Parks today announced that more than 60 state parks, as well as the Division of Boating and Waterways’ Boat Clean and Green Program (DBW) participate in the 35th annual California Coastal Cleanup Day (The Cleanup) being held on Saturday, Sept. 21, 2019.

Organized by the California Coastal Commission (Commission), the cleanup event will take place in more than 1,000 sites across California, including beaches, shorelines and inland waterways up and down the coast––from Oregon to the Mexico border and as far inland as Lake Tahoe.

More than 65,000 volunteers are expected to gather across California to remove trash from beaches and inland shorelines. California’s event, which is the state’s largest annual volunteer event, is also part of the International Coastal Cleanup organized by the Ocean Conservancy.

Coastal Cleanup Day also provides a hands-on educational experience about the damage that trash, especially single use disposable plastics, can cause to California’s wildlife, economy, and human health. According to past cleanup data, 75 percent of the debris that volunteers removed was composed of plastic, a material that never completely biodegrades and has numerous harmful consequences in the environment.

Plastic debris can kill wildlife, leach toxins into the environment, and introduce them into the food chain. Last year alone, over 71,000 participants removed over 800,000 pounds of trash and recyclables from California’s coast and inland waterways.

Below is a list of state parks participating in this year’s Cleanup:

DBW has also supported The Cleanup for more than seven years with outreach marketing, staff assistance and volunteer coordination. This year, DBW’s ongoing support to clean up our beaches and waterways includes on-the-ground visits/assistance in San Mateo County and at six boating facilities on Alameda Island.

To find out how to join this statewide effort, the Commission has an interactive map of cleanup locations in every corner of the state, which is available at here. You can check the website for updates and share your cleanup experience on social media using the hashtag #CoastalCleanUpDay.

Follow statewide efforts on Facebook at facebook.com/CaliforniaCoast.

See you there!