Mighty Disappointing...

Dateline: Monday morning, August 29, 2016 from 8:45 a.m. to approx. 10 a.m., along Santa Monica South between Lifeguard Towers 16 - 22... I picked up trash along the beach between the high tide line and the berm in front of the lifeguard towers and the amount of trash collected was absolutely staggering!  It is obvious that the City of Santa Monica does not hand pick the trash in this area of the beach.  To my knowledge, no one from the City walks the beach on a regular basis and picks up trash.

We begin at Lifeguard Tower #16 just south of the Santa Monica Pier and head in a southerly direction toward Ocean Park...

This Coke Bottle must have been too difficult to see to pick up.....  x-ref: Trademarks As Trash...

A couple of discarded GATORADE bottles below...

A broken surf board that was discarded yesterday...  maybe the City just couldn't see it...

Bottle, etc. underneath Lifeguard Tower #17.  Why does the City not pick this up?

Below, is the plastic bag full of trash that I collected just between Tower 16 and 17!!!

Continuing on toward Tower 22, there was more trash to be collected so that by the time I arrived at the blue recycling container behind Tower 22, the large plastic bag I was carrying was overflowing and a smaller plastic bag contained the 6 bottles of Corona beer left in the sand along the berm near Tower 22...

Below, plastic water bottles in the foreground and a handful of Corona bottles mid frame...

Turns out that there were six (6) Corona bottles discarded in the sand overnight with one buried but found when I picked them up and drove them into the sand by their necks for this photo and then collected them for disposal...

Below is the trash collected from Tower 16 - 22.  The plastic and glass was placed inside the blue recycling container and the balance of trash was tossed in a nearby garbage container...

Does anyone think that the City of Santa Monica actually hand picks the trash between the water line and the berm?  The failure to clean up this section of the beach on a regular basis is, to say the least, "Mighty Disappointing."

x-ref:  http://www.smmirror.com/articles/News/Trash-Talk/45915

Excerpt:

“We have tractors that are out there daily lining up the trash before another machine comes to collect and dump the trash off site,” Constance Farrell, Public Information Coordinator for Santa Monica City told The Mirror. “We also have a small but mighty team of City employees who work on the beach seven days a week. Community service crews also help keep the beach clean.”  Also, per Constance Farrell, "Our team hand picks trash near the water’s edge, but it’s constant work."

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Comment:  Obviously, the small but mighty team of City employees are NOT walking the beach and hand picking up the trash on a regular basis and certainly not on a daily basis.

Below, are the recyclables we placed inside the blue recycle container shown above.

Compared to Venice Beach, the beaches in Santa Monica are filthy and full of trash along the water line to the berm.  It is reprehensible that the City of Santa Monica shirks its responsibility in this regard.

It is hoped that the City of Santa Monica will actually start hand picking up the trash along the water line to the berm.

Respectfully submitted,

William Maguire

(All photos by & Copyright William Maguire 2016.)

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