This is Amanda Sousa\u2019s 16th year helping organize Coastal Cleanup Day.<\/p>\n
\u201cCoastal Clean Up Day is my favorite day of the year,\u201d Sousa says. \u201c[It] just brings me so much joy talking to all the different people that come out for our event,\u201d Sousa says.<\/p>\n
For 42 years, people have been coming to San Diego\u2019s coast with one goal: leave it cleaner than they found it.<\/p>\n
Thousands of people coming together makes for a powerful sight. What they\u2019re coming together to clean up is another story.<\/p>\n
Cigarette butts. Beach toys. Single-use plastics \u2014 And as that plastic breaks down, it can become micro plastics, tiny fragments that can persist in the environment and be eaten by marine life.<\/p>\n
Amanda says even the smallest pieces can have an impact, and volunteers don\u2019t just pick up the trash, they keep track of it.<\/p>\n
Through the Clean Swell app, volunteers record what they collect, creating data that go directly to the government.<\/p>\n
Amanda tells me she\u2019s seen the changes to the coast after implementing new laws, like San Diego\u2019s 2008 beach alcohol ban and the 2016 ban on single-use plastic bag law.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat also was a big impact on our coastlines because that contributed to so much excessive trash on the beaches specifically after holidays,\u201d Sousa says.<\/p>\n
Volunteers know their work on the sand can shape what happens next. It\u2019s why they keep coming.<\/p>\n
Last year, about 3,000 people participated in San Diego, removing 55,000 pounds of trash from the coast. This year they hope for an even bigger turnout.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat process of coming out, doing something, recognizing a problem, communicating it to our local officials, and then making a change for the better, that’s the beauty of our Country and of our State,\u201d Sousa says.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This is Amanda Sousa\u2019s 16th year helping organize Coastal Cleanup Day. \u201cCoastal Clean Up Day is my favorite…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":469470,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[74,76,75],"class_list":["post-469469","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/469469","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=469469"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/469469\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/469470"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=469469"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=469469"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=469469"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}