Photo courtesy of Solano Resource Conservation District

SOLANO COUNTY, CA (MPG) - This year’s 40th anniversary of Coastal Cleanup Day will be like every other Coastal Cleanup Day over the last 4 decades: a massive joint effort to protect and enhance our environment and resources. 

People from around the world will unite and work together to remove litter from our lakes and creeks to our coastlines and ocean. The event has grown to be the world’s largest single-day volunteer event. Volunteers put themselves aside, and spend a morning outdoors picking up trash and recyclable materials to leave their local parks, trails, creeks, and roadsides better than they found them. Volunteers participate individually, with their family and friends and with work and church groups from 9 am to 12 pm at local sites. Volunteer participation is the heart and soul of Coastal Cleanup, and it makes a real difference.

Organizers are hoping that on Sept. 21, Solano County will exceed last year’s total of nearly 1,500 volunteers working together to collect over 20,000 pounds of refuse from Solano County sites. The trash typically includes cigarette filters, plastic bottles, food takeout containers, grocery bags, etc. Properly disposing of these items makes Solano County a healthier place to live and recreate, and helps to keep recyclables and trash out of the San Francisco Bay and Pacific Ocean. California residents can also use the California’s Beverage Container Recycling Program to recycle most beverages sold in aluminum, glass, plastic, or bimetal containers. Those with a CRV (CA redemption value) designation are eligible for a beverage container recycling refund, distributed on a per-container basis. By participating you get money and help the state reach their goal of an 80% recycling rate for all aluminum, glass, plastic, and bimetal beverage containers sold in California.

Coastal Cleanup Day volunteers do even more: they help collect important data about how much and what kinds of trash is picked up on Coastal Cleanup Day for the largest existing dataset about plastics pollution in the world. In California, this information has been used to develop new laws, like Senate Bill 54, California’s “Circular Economy Bill,” which requires manufacturers to be responsible for making packaging and single use containers recyclable or compostable, and creates funding to develop facilities needed for recycling and composting.

Stephanie Stock, Assistant Manager for Solano Resource Conservation District, said, “Coastal Cleanup Day is one of Solano County’s best-attended public stewardship days. Together, we’re doing the work to keep our land and waterways clean from Solano to the sea.”

Part of that work is making sure we eliminate waste created by the cleanup itself. Coordinators ask volunteers to bring reusable cleanup supplies (work gloves, water bottles, or buckets). If volunteers need supplies, sites will have materials on hand.

Visit the event website at cleanupsolano.org for cleanup locations near you, and updates about the event.

Coastal Cleanup Day is coordinated by Solano Resource Conservation District on behalf of the cities and County of Solano and supported by partnerships with local wastewater agencies, parks, and the State’s Coastal Commission.