Tag Archives: beach trash

Mad ocean, foaming at the mouth

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The past few months have brought a never-ending supply of foam to the beaches at Point Reyes. Mostly polystyrene, though other flavors as well, all petroleum based.

This pile has been growing and shrinking for several months. I add to it that which I am unable to haul out at the time, then return later to pack out what I can.

I strive to get foam off the beach as soon as possible. Birds peck at it looking for food, harming themselves in the process, as well as breaking it up into smaller pieces for other unsuspecting animals to attempt to snack on.

This young elephant seal is still trying to figure out how to feed itself now that mom and her high-fat milk is gone. I hope it quickly learned that foam is NOT food.

The rough water of winter storms grinds it up and pushes it into the drainages that meet the beach.

Such a lovely sight in a national seashore!

This scene is reproduced all over the world each and every winter.

I spent nearly 2 hours picking up most everything not wood or sand in this image.

Foam does not weigh much, but it is big and bulky. Forty-five pounds or so on one’s back is like a spinnaker. Thankfully I had the wind at my back on the hike out and made great time.

The next stop for this load of man-made mess is the dumpster at Point Reyes headquarters.

I wonder where the contents of the dumpster will end up?

Remember, on this tiny planet, there is no away.

Bottled water stinks

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Bottled water stinks

 

In 2011 on the 4th of July, the NPS forgot to place a second dumpster at Drakes Beach, something I was later told is the norm. The masses and their hundreds of recyclable beverage containers, BBQ scraps, oyster shells and broken furniture/plastic toys overfilled the lone dumpster. This skunk chewed into the plastic bag you see and scattered debris far and wide. I spent a couple hours picking up after the skunk as well as the wind that had distributed all the items that did not fit into the lone dumpster.

Below is a short clip of one of the many visitors to the beach each morning, looking for a bite to eat. Notice this animal does not leave any wrappers or other trash after dining.

https://youtu.be/AAvZwQzGb6U

A long walk on The Great Ocean Beach – Point Reyes

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I’ve not posted anything in a while.

My creative muse is on extended hiatus and my writing is not something I am overly fond of.

Last night the swell off Point Reyes was over 20 feet for an extended period of time, peaking at nearly 25 feet around 3:00 am. Big waves! Big fun.

I love being on the beach when the energy is high.

Last year I walked nearly the entire Great Ocean Beach with a few friends. We got a late start and grew tired, so we did not do the last mile.

Yesterday I decided to bag the whole enchilada. I packed food and drink, and all the clothes I might need. Without a car shuttle, I either needed to hitch a ride at the other end or do the walk twice. How would my legs hold out?

The blue line is my track - click to see a larger image

Got up at 5:00 am, drove to North Beach (the midpoint of the Great Ocean Beach, some call it ten mile beach, others twelve mile beach, I call it the outside beach, Drake/Limantour being inside) and stashed two liters of water. Then I drove up to Kehoe Beach and left the car at 6:19 am. After the short walk to the beach I was greeted with moderate winds and huge seas. The foam was deep and all the way up to the dune grass. Enormous waves crashed and pounded the beach.

To do the whole beach proper, I hiked north about two thirds of a mile to the wall. I had to dodge waves and deep drifts of thick foam all the way to the wall. Sea birds, wounded in the heavy surf littered the beach or swam in the foam/water, clearly not well. At the wall I set a waypoint and set off to the wall at the other end by the Lighthouse. It was 6:49 am.

All along the way I was serenaded with the sound and sight of enormous crashing waves. Waves twenty feet high crash long and loud, foamy spray shooting into the sky. The litter load was not as heavy as I would have thought. Lots of crab gear, some pelagic litter (from far away, coated with goose-necked barnacles and green slime) and the usual wrappers, bottles and broken patio furniture. One glass IV bottle showed up with Asian writing. As did a small brown glass vial for needle use. Only one hypodermic needle today.

Given my need for speed, I did not pick up everything in sight as is my usual MO. Plastic bottles, tennis balls, oyster spacer tubes, plastic brims from sports caps and the random toy made it into my several bags.

At one point I almost tripped over a Western Grebe. It immediately began kicking with one leg and crying out. The other leg was lifeless. I backed off a bit til it quieted down and watched it for a few minutes. It was terrified, unable to move except in a semi-circle as it kicked with one leg and cried. I pulled out my knife, said a short prayer, looked it in the eye and put it down.

Still miles from the other wall, I moved out, the lifeless, yet I hoped no longer suffering grebe foremost in my mind.

As I neared the North Beach parking lot, I noticed the heavy surf had knocked down a large portion of the rope fence put up to keep people out of Western Snowy Plover nesting areas. Walking along and resetting several posts, I hoped I had set it in the same location it was before.

By now I had about 35-40 pounds of trash with me, time to cache this and get some water and snack. One apple, some cheese and chocolate washed down with a liter of water and I was good to go.

Eventually I reached the South Wall at 1:07 pm and stopped for lunch. Legs sore and now facing a headwind, the idea of punting at either South Beach or North Beach on the way back crept into my fatigued mind. My third apple, 2 more ounces of cheese and some chocolate consumed, I set off into the quartering-headwind from whence I came.

By the time I reached North Beach again, my legs and feet held the floor and the vote was in, punt. Climbing over the bank, the parking lot was full of cars, surely one was headed to Kehoe eventually.

The nearest car’s driver had just hopped in and turned the key. I caught his eye and got him to roll his window down. “Hi, are you by chance headed to Kehoe Beach?” I asked.

“Well, I am making it up as I go today, where is Kehoe?”

“About twenty minutes north of here, I’ll show you the way and explain the sights as we go.”

“Great, hop on in.”

Daniel was visiting from the East Bay for the day, exploring beaches he had not visited in many years. He drove me right to my car. I and my feet thanked him profusely and we parted ways.

I popped three more ibuprofen and headed back to pickup the trash I had cached at both North and South beaches. I still have another cache to pickup further south and will do that later.

After 20.85 miles in soft, sloping sand, the hot shower felt wonderful.

Stinson Beach Library – Found Art

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Four artists’ work is on display at the Stinson Beach Library until 31 January, 2012.

Richard James has two of his large meta-bottles on the patio along with 49 jellyfish I made out of Korean fishing-net floats and crab-fishing rope.

Lina Jane Prairie has baskets made from kelp and the same rope I use for tentacles.

John Norton is showing a few of his collections of similar items found on the beach.

Tess Felix has created two mermaids and a few portraits, mosaics actually, all from the bits of petroleum-based plastic we humans discard every minute of every day which wash ashore on the world’s beaches and are eaten by birds and fish the world over every minute of every day.

Nineteen is a prime number – too large and too small…

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Last Saturday I walked 3 miles along Point Reyes Beach from North Beach to Abbotts Lagoon with the Point Reyes Plover expert. She does this regularly during Western Snowy Plover breeding season. She also covers other regions of the Point Reyes Snowy Plover breeding area. This day we were on the lookout for 5 Snowy Plover chicks that had hatched recently.

She prowled for birds while I gleaned the plastics that wash ashore on a regular basis.

After creating a small depression in the sand and lining it with mostly light colored rocks to increase the stealthiness of the nest, a female plover will lay 2-4 eggs directly on the sand. Most times she lays 3 eggs.

Three Western Snowy Plover eggs in a scrape (nest)

About 28 days later, if the sea has not washed away the eggs, ravens, crows, coyotes, raccoons, skunks or weasels have not eaten the eggs, off-leash dogs or errant humans have not trampled the nest, the birds emerge form their cocoon. Plover chicks are “precocious”, meaning that they are out of the nest and cruising for food within hours after hatching.

Mother plover leaves to go find another mate, father plover begins a month-long odyssey attempting to ensure his brood learns to eat, and keeps from being eaten.

Researchers consider a chick fledged if it survives 28 days. The last 3 years at Point Reyes have seen 7, 8 and 5 chicks fledge (2010, 2009, 2008). There are an estimated 5000 plovers, period.

Western Snowy Plovers are on the endangered species list. This means that they are in danger of going extinct. Extinct means there are no more plovers. Ever.

Dog owners, please keep this in mind the next time you want to let your domesticated, far from extinct pal run off-leash in this area.

Beach driftwood architects, enjoy building your complex driftwood structures. But, once you are done, please dismantle your work-of-art. Ravens use these structures to rest and look for prey, including endangered plovers. Don’t make it easy for ravens to further reduce the dwindling numbers of snowy plovers.

The park plover expert knows when each plover egg is laid and when each chick hatches. Finding all plovers present and accounted for each day is a good day.

Last Saturday we found all 5 chicks, plus fourteen adults for a total of nineteen birds.

I found a small bag of plastic trash, including nineteen plastic beverage bottles.

Nineteen plastic bottles, nineteen too many

So, depending on one’s perspective, nineteen is too small, and too large.

Please use one metal bottle for your drinking water needs.

The coastodian

I don’t like your bottles in the park

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A couple days ago I stopped to get coffee at a local market.

As I got out of my car and walked towards the door, cup in hand, a woman I know shouted out to me “Hey, shouldn’t you be out on the beach picking up trash?”

She was smiling as she said it. One of those smiles that says I am kidding, but not fully.

I explained that I wrenched my knee and was on the DL for a while as I recuperated.

Standing feet apart from one another at the edge of Sir Francis Drake Boulevard, she said to me, “I saw your sculptures in the park by the visitor center. I don’t like them in the National Park.”

I’ve known her for a few years now, mostly bumping into her at volunteer events at the park. She is a long time Point Reyes National Seashore volunteer, roosting in West Marin when not at one of her other residences.

She is always pretty direct, in your face. She likes to get a reaction with her words.

The object of her disdain is “Thirsty?”, my collection of five eight-and-a-half-foot-tall plastic bottle sculptures. I spent a year picking up about a ton of trash off park beaches, from which I culled one item, plastic bottles, to create the art installation.

“What don’t you like about the sculptures?” I asked.

“I don’t like their aesthetic,” she said.

“Yeah. They look kind of trashy in the meadow don’t they?” I stated.

“That’s right, I don’t like that sort of thing in the National Park, it looks bad,” she said.

At this point I am figuring she declined to walk over to the art installation and read the 43-word interpretive panel explaining the piece.

“I’m glad you don’t like it,” I said, “neither do I. All that trash in the park is just plain wrong!”

I encouraged her, after entering the market, to ask the owner to stop selling bottled water. He has told me he is a capitalist and he intends to make money, consequences be damned.

I’m not quite sure she got the message of “Thirsty?”.

Tons of trash washes ashore on California beaches each and every day. Most of it almost tinier than the eye can see in the form of (raw plastic-nurdles), shredded Styrofoam pellets, packaging, toys, fishing gear, food containers etc.

Most people don’t see the magnitude of the trash problem when they visit the beach.

Magnifying the problem by building eight and a half foot tall plastic bottles apparently registered on her radar.

How big do I need to make these bottles to get on a majority of people’s radar?

We are shitting in our nest a toxic brew of chemicals nature cannot metabolize.

Please, use one metal bottle!

the coastodian

Thirsty? at Bear Valley Visitor Center - Point Reyes National Seashore

Meta-bottles on Drake’s Beach, huh?

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The beaches of Point Reyes National Seashore are striking.

Meta-bottles on Drake's Beach

I often walk these beaches in search of interesting  subjects to photograph, as well as to soothe my soul, collecting trash along the way.

In 3 years I have packed out on my back over three tons of trash, mostly plastic and styrofoam bits of all sizes.

After a couple of years of packing 80+ pound packs of foam and boat bits off Tomales Point and the area beaches, it was suggested to me more than once that I ought to store one years’ worth of trash, then display it downtown for all to see. My response evolved into, “That is a great idea, may I store it at your place?” Always, this was met with a grin and a no-thanks.

Having this exchange a few times prompted me to decide to store a year’s worth of drink bottles and display them somehow, with the hope of encouraging people to use a refillable metal bottle and stop buying plastic. The folks at Point Reyes National Seashore kindly allowed me to store my material in a park barn.

I constructed what I call meta-bottles. Bottles of bottles. The contents and the caps (two-gallon buckets) are beach debris. The chicken wire was donated, then purchased when that ran out. It is all held together with, sigh, plastic tie-wraps. I tried to sew the chicken wire with found rope. It was not do-able in the manner I tried, though I plan to re-examine this for future bottles.

Each bottle is 8.5 feet tall and 30 inches in diameter. The five bottles comprise roughly 172 cubic feet of mostly uncompressed plastic bottles.

Intact labels show countries of origin including: Japan, China, Korea, Russia, Malaysia, Greece. A small percentage are clearly “home-grown in the US of A”. The currents of the sea bring others’ trash to us, perhaps our trash to them. The sea creatures see it all, often thinking it is food to eat.

What I have learned from my many hours on the beach is that it does not so much matter how many people pick up the trash that is coming in, 24/7/365 from the sea.  Myself and 1000 others could work each and every day and not keep up with the new trash arriving each day.

More importantly, we all need to stop adding to the mess by making wiser, more sustainable hydration and other purchase choices.

These meta-bottles show what one person can pick up on a fraction of the earth’s coastline in one short year. Imagine what is trapped in the many gyres in all the seas! The earth cannot metabolize what man keeps dumping in the sea. These bottles eventually break down and are eaten by fish, that are eaten by fish and eventually eaten by man.

Please consider never buying another plastic bottle of water. Tell a friend, too!

Thanks go out to Lacey, Joe, Madeleine, Gordon, Samantha, Micaela, Katrina, Sean, Katie, Jesse, Chris, Angie, Gabe, Melanie, Randy, Carissa and especially Vicki for helping me along the way. Thanks everyone!

The Coastodian