On Saturday February 20th, a couple of Team Marine members attended Heal the Bay’s ‘Nothin’ But Sand’ beach cleanup at the Venice Beach Pier. The turnout was amazing, with over 1077 people, and the amount of trash that was collected was even more impressive which was measured at around 292 pounds! As we were scanning the beach we noticed that there was a large amount of plastic bottle caps, small pieces of styrofoam, cigarette butts and plastic straws. One of our captains, Zoe, took photos of the straws we collected for her other club (Reducing Straw Pollution). We also met two 8th graders from Lincoln Middle School who we ended up talking with about what we do and hopefully convinced them to join their freshman year! Cigarette butts were one of the most abundant litter found on this beach, probably because there was rain a couple of days before and they most washed down from the streets. We spent 3 hours cleaning, and because of the sheer amount of people who showed up, we picked up even the microsystems and the beach looked absolutely beautiful!
