Less trash found at several July 5th Save Our Shores Beach clean-ups in Santa Cruz

While a good amount of people hit the beach for the 4th of July, there was a decrease in trash found the next day compared to other years.

Save Our Shores hosts beach cleanup days after major beach holidays each year, fourth of July included.

Volunteers gathered at Seabright Beach around 9:30 to start picking up what trash was left over from the day before.

Santa Cruz resident Nan Moore says she usually describes the beach as “Chaos, a landfill dump, it’s horrible, terrible, it’s a mess.”

But this year was a different stroy, “It’s as clean as a whistle, there was not an iota of trash on this beach this morning,” says Moore.

John Hammond who also lives near by says he comes down pretty often to pick up trash as he walks his dogs. This year he found a significant amount less than previous years, “one chip bag, one candy wrapper and that was about it.”

Seabright Beach was adopted by the Santa Cruz Museum of Natural History years ago. Today they hosted the clean up at Seabright.

Flecia Van Stolk with Santa Cruz Museum of natural history says she’s seen a trend of trash decrease, “we used to come and see mountains and mountains of take out containers and things like that. this year it’s not here, so it’s a good thing.”

But there are still things to pick up. Shoes, throw pillows and different plastic peices were among some things found today.

The most dangerous things for humans are usually shards of glass or needles, but for animals, it’s cigarette butts.

“While we were waiting to set up for our volunteers we picked up 30 cigarette butts, just right here in the entrance gateway to the beach. They’re really small, they get kind of buried under the sand but they definitely will last for a really long time because the filters are made out of plastic, they’re not paper, not cotton, they don’t just dissolve and go away,” says Van Stolk.

Save Our Shores is still tallying up the amount of trash found, but they do estimate it was less than last year.

One mom out at Seabright with her son and daughter says it’s not only helping clean up, but it’s a teachable moment for the kids.

“Ive been trying to teach the kids to be really conscious of our actions and how they can effect the world around us. So this was the perfect opportunity to come out and we talked about how the trash can effect the wildlife and poisons the earth and it was just a really good opportunity for them to learn,” says Bethany Hausen.