Hundreds help clean up beaches on the Central Coast

Across nearly a dozen beaches in Monterey and Santa Cruz Counties, Save Our Shores hosted Monterey Bay’s largest Earth Day Coastal Cleanup.

“People should do their part in picking up whatever they bring onto the beach, they should be bringing off the beach, but that doesn’t necessarily happen,” said Barbara Beaumont of Pacifica. “With the storms we’ve had there’s a lot more garbage that’s floating out onto our oceans.”

Environmental protection was the goal. On Del Monte Beach volunteers picked up everything from cigarette butts to plastic pieces and even tires, which could have ended up in the bay and in the mouths of animals and marine life.

“Hopefully what people take back with them is that we need to lower our impact on the environment,” said Save Our Shores Sanctuary Steward Aide Rodriguez. “Try to use more reusable items, dispose of our cigarettes butts properly.”

On the other side of Del Monte Beach, volunteers with the Beach Garden Project restored native dune plants.

“We need to help the earth because plants give us oxygen and without oxygen we would die and the earth would start dying,” said volunteer Kegan Barrycharuplon.

By ridding the dunes of Ice Plants, native plants can flourish.

“We’re one of the narrowest beaches in the southern Monterey Bay, it’s eroding at a huge amount each year,” said Beach Garden Project Dune Biologist Joey Dorrellcanepa. “So these native plants that we’re putting in help keep the sand in place for the purpose of the residents and all the visitors that come yearly.”

Other Earth Day activities included festivals, marches and eco-literacy.