Volunteers Hit the Beach for Saturday's Coastal Cleanup

A little marine layer didn't keep people off the beach Saturday morning, as they joined in the largest international volunteer effort in the world, Coastal Cleanup Day.

Heal the Bay organized the local effort, with two locations on Venice Beach, at Rose Avenue and at the pier. About 130 people had come through the Rose Avenue location by about 10:45 Saturday morning.

"Tar seemed to be a big thing people were finding, and that's something I've never seen here before," said Todd Flores, Heal the Bay's beach captain at the Rose Avenue cleanup since 2000.

Along with tar, volunteers picked up thousands of cigarette butts, pieces of plastic, bottles, and even a watermelon, embedded in the sand.

"Most of the trash that ends up by the ocean is not from beach-goers," a volunteer told people during a brief orientation. Instead, he explained, everything that is thrown onto the street inland is washed out to the beach.

He reminded people not to swim within 100 yards of a storm drain and not to swim for three days after it rains.

In addition to the usual assortment of environmentally aware westsiders, families and high school students fulfilling volunteer requirements, another group joined the Rose Avenue cleanup this year:

Gay for Good is a national volunteer group, started in Los Angeles in 2008, which organizes monthly community service outings. They have recently volunteered at Roosevelt High School, the Venice Family Clinic, and the L.A. Food Bank.

"We do projects outside the LGBT community to build bridges," L.A. branch president Steve Gatwick said. "There's no politics, no money, just time and energy."

By 11 a.m., about 60 people – almost half the total number of volunteers at Rose Avenue – had volunteered through Gay for Good.

"It's a recession-popular thing," Gatwick laughed.

Last year, more than 80,000 people took part in the California Coastal Cleanup Day, removing more than 1.2 million pounds of trash and recyclables from California's beaches and waterways.

The effort is funded in part through the state, which this year launched a new environmental license plate design. Californians can get the new Whale's Tail plates for $40 annually, a portion of which goes to supporting California Coastal Cleanup Day.

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Editor's note: An earlier version of this story misidentified the group Gay for Good as Gays for Good. Apologies for any confusion.