Cigarette butts, plastics top list of pollutants on California beaches
News
by: Salvador Rivera
Posted: Jul 22, 2021 / 05:56 PM CDT / Updated: Jul 22, 2021 / 05:56 PM CDT
SAN DIEGO (Border Report) — The Surfrider Foundation says it removed about 80,000 pounds of trash from California’s coastal beaches and waterways last year, and the number one item picked up by volunteers: cigarette butts.
Cigarette butts are the single item most collected by Surfrider volunteers. (Courtesy: Surfrider Beach Cleanup Report)
Per its annual Beach Cleanup Report, volunteers picked up 8,131 cigarette butts in San Diego alone. They also found tons of plastics, bottle caps, food wrappers and foam debris.
“Cleanup and individual action certainly helps, however, we will never fix this problem unless we demand that our elected officials hold corporations responsible for the constant and ever-growing stream of plastic pollution they are inundating us with,” said Mitch Silverstein, the San Diego chapter manager to the UT San Diego. “We pay the price in taxpayer-funded cleanup costs, not to mention the toll to our clean water, clean air, clean seafood and marine ecosystems in general.”
https://www.borderreport.com/news/cigarette-butts-plastics-top-list-of-pollutants-on-california-beaches/