Day 14 - May 8, 2009

Life Guard Station 26, Ocean Park, Santa Monica CA

trash collected for 20 min.

est. lbs. today - 2.5

est. lbs. to date - 93
This post is graphic. I feel like I should apologize for showing detailed photos of tampons and poop. But here's the thing. We need to know that when we go out to the beach to surf, like the picture above, or let our kids swim, that there's stuff washing in there that carries a lot of bacteria. Biological waste is a problem at my local beach. So far, and I've been at this less than a month, I've found: regularly...

1. condoms, condom wrappers

2. tampons

3. syringes

4. band-aids

This is how close these items are to the water. Unfortunately, it most likely came from the water and washed up this far. Still, it is very close to going back in, except, I picked it up, with a plastic bag. Ugh.

Sorry. Let's assume this is DOG WASTE. Although, I've got to tell you, I had my doubts. And yes, this is the worst thing I've had to pick up to date.

Dog waste, (and there are no dogs allowed on this beach), is a huge problem. I'll leave one factoid here:

1 gram of dog waste contains 23 million fecal coli form bacteria (www.stormwatercenter.net)

And if you want to read more, click here. See the photo below. This one was close to be washed in, but don't despair, it didn't. PHEW!