{"id":308893,"date":"2026-05-10T11:24:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-10T11:24:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/308893\/"},"modified":"2026-05-10T11:24:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-10T11:24:08","slug":"californias-most-remote-beaches-are-still-plagued-by-trash","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/308893\/","title":{"rendered":"California’s most remote beaches are still plagued by trash"},"content":{"rendered":"

Getting to the rocky, cliff-backed stretch of beach along Chinese Harbor on Santa Cruz Island<\/a> in Channel Islands National Park<\/a> requires a roughly 90-minute boat ride, then a short kayak through the Pacific Ocean to shore, since there\u2019s no landing dock for larger boats.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The closest Starbucks is at least 25 miles across the Santa Barbara Channel, maybe in downtown Ventura<\/a>. Still, the nearly indestructible plastic cups emblazoned with the coffee giant\u2019s logo regularly wash ashore here, along with myriad other trash artifacts from the mainland. On any given day, the sand catches plastic water bottles, plastic utensils and, for some reason, a lot of tennis balls.\u00a0<\/p>\n

After heavy rain, stormwater drains usher water directly from urban environments out to the ocean, often picking up trash and debris along the way. That trash then ends up in the ocean, where currents carry it outward \u2014 and the wide, remote beaches of Channel Islands National Park can serve as a \u201ccatcher\u2019s mitt\u201d for some of this trash, snaring it before it\u2019s carried out farther into the ocean. What the islands miss could end up at the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, according to Molly Troup, the science and program manager for Santa Barbara\u00a0Channelkeeper.\u00a0<\/p>\n

For the past several years, Santa Barbara Channelkeeper has hosted cleanup events on these rarely visited stretches of beaches twice a year, in partnership with the Island Packers, the Santa Barbara Adventure Company, the Commercial Fishermen of Santa Barbara, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration\u200b\u200b Marine Debris Program, and the National Marine Sanctuary Foundation. (The\u00a0Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary<\/a> protects 1,470 square miles of ocean around the northern Channel Islands.)<\/p>\n

\u201cMost of the marine debris that we find is coming from the mainland in some form or fashion,\u201d said Ted Morton, the executive director of Santa Barbara\u00a0Channelkeeper, citing examples of finding trash from McDonald\u2019s and a trash can carried into the ocean all the way from Ojai.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s polluting a very sensitive place, and it\u2019s also trash that can have an impact on wildlife,\u201d Morton continued. \u201cAnd it takes an effort to visit these beaches. They don\u2019t get a lot of public visitation. So if the trash is sort of left to just be there, it pollutes the beach and will just exacerbate the problems.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trash did feel relatively scarce on the extremely rocky beach along Chinese Harbor on Monday \u2014 volunteers fanned out across the coastline, sifting through driftwood and seaweed for the possibility of finding small pieces of plastic or other trash. (I found one plastic coffee cup lid for my efforts.) Several Starbucks cups were picked up yet again, along with deflated Mylar balloons (including a blue \u201cHappy Birthday\u201d balloon covered with smiling yellow emoji faces) and large hunks of sheet metal. Volunteers also hauled out a large forgotten lobster trap, a common cleanup item along the beach, according to Troup.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Monday\u2019s cleanup \u201cseemed like a lot less than we have been getting,\u201d said Troup, but the groups did just visit the same beach in September and haul out hundreds of pounds of trash. When all was said and done, the total weight of trash collected on Monday was 775 pounds, weighed down by the lobster traps and metal. And as long as we all keep using single-use plastics, they\u2019re likely going to make their way out into the ocean. (Although, maybe the state\u2019s single-use plastic bag ban will make a small dent.)<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Getting to the rocky, cliff-backed stretch of beach along Chinese Harbor on Santa Cruz Island in Channel Islands…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":308894,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7,9,8,1229],"class_list":["post-308893","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-california","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-news","tag-sfgparks"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308893","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=308893"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308893\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/308894"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=308893"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=308893"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=308893"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}