Beach Cleanup Alerts Kids to Litter’s Effects

Over the rocky shores and hot stretches of sand, students scoured the San Buenaventura State Beach for trash Wednesday.

“Two cigarette butts. Three cigarette butts. I found another cigarette butt,” yelled one girl, shaking the sand off her litter.

About 70 students from Lincoln Elementary School in Ventura participated in the Adopt-A-Beach cleanup project, picking over the sand from the city’s pier up to Sanjon Road.

After discovering the cigarette butts, plastic foam, glass and junk food wrappers floating on the sand or next to the rocks, a number of students grew indignant, fearing for nearby wildlife.

“We want to keep the whales still swimming and not laying in the sand and just dying,” said second-grader Shon Myles. “The trash could maybe poison them.”

Students from Lincoln will tally how much and what types of trash they picked up to study the effects of litter on the environment for a science class.

Looking over their notes, 11-year-old Tasha Dixon and 10-year-old Amanda Greenstein announce their findings: 11 cigarettes, 12 pieces of plastic foam, two pieces of glass, five aluminum objects and 13 pieces of paper. “I’m really disappointed,” Tasha said. “If they keep doing that, we won’t have a nice beach.”

For city employees, the help of school and community volunteers doesn’t go unnoticed.

“It helps out a great deal when we can get these kids out,” said public works employee Michelle Gross. “People are sloppy and they always leave garbage during the weekend.”

If fifth-grader Bruce Smith could give beach litterbugs a message, he would urge them to seek the garbage can rather then being lazy.

“I would say, don’t do it again, because we can’t live in this Earth. And we want to be happy in the world without anybody polluting it,” he said.