It’s late-July and the ringing in my ears is only just now starting to fade away after yet another round of raucous July 4th celebrations.
As many of you are probably familiar, July 5th is known as the Dirtiest Day on The Beach.
Surfrider staff Liz Schotman slinging bags of trash into the dumpster. Photo credit: Kelly Jones
On July 4th, people flocked to Washington’s coasts by the tens of thousands to celebrate America’s birthday by launching a truly stunning amount of fireworks into the ocean and leaving behind an even more stunning amount of smoldering garbage. While this lack of stewardship by revelers is disappointing, to say the least, what is heartening is the number of people that show up to clean up on the morning after the mess.
Several chapters located around Puget Sound (shout out to Seattle, Northwest Straits, and South Sound!) held local cleanups and picked up hundreds of pounds of trash from beaches that during other times of the year typically only see a few dozen pounds. While we see slightly higher amounts of trash along our more urban beaches, the situation on the outer coast is a whole different beast.
Trash and dumpster fires are a common occurrence during our July 5th cleanup. These volunteers were out hauling truckloads of debris for hours, making sure to extinguish smoldering garbage before throwing it in the dumpster. Photo credit: Kelly Jones
The Situation
Over a hundred thousand visitors flock to central and southwestern Washington beaches to celebrate America’s birthday. In Ocean Shores alone, an estimated 120-130,000 people pour into a town of less than 8000. Many of them didn’t just come to watch - they came to play. It’s almost hard to describe if you’ve never been but think of any professional fireworks show you’ve seen (Disney World, your city’s annual show, SuperBowl half time), then multiply that by a thousand. Or one hundred thousand. It’s bright, it’s loud, and by nightfall, the ocean breeze carries notes of copper and lead (many fireworks contain heavy metals that are hazardous to human health, so do try and avoid breathing in the smoke if you can).
Your favorite (haha, j/k, your only) Washington field staff Pete Steelquist and Liz Schotman (soliciting team names - SteelSchot? ManQuist?) were helping to hold down the fort in Ocean Shores, and it was a situation, to say the least. We rolled up at 8:00 am to find one 40-yard dumpster already half-full. The City staff had been hard at work for an hour, hauling bagged garbage off the beach with the help of a backhoe and a front loader.
It takes a village - a village with heavy machinery - to clean up the morning after the mess. Photo credit: Liz Schotman
Gladiators - We Salute you!
I can’t stress enough how much I appreciate the dedication and support of all the different humans involved in this massive effort. To our partners at State Parks, you are a delight to work with and we appreciate you in so many ways! To the City of Ocean Shores employees out bright and early, scouring the beach and hauling load after load of trash to the dumpster, repeatedly smashing that trash down to make room for ever bigger piles, and putting out the occasional dumpster fire - you are the unsung heroes and essential to this entire endeavor.
To the Olympia Chapter holding down the fort at Twin Harbors State Park year after year. To partner groups like Grassroots Garbage Gang, Defenders of the Coast, and so many more - your dedication to stewarding the beaches you love continues to be an inspiration. And of course, to WA Coastsavers, who helps coordinate and organize this event across the coast every year.
This year, we dedicated more time and energy to prevention. The Grays Harbor Chapter partnered with Defenders of the Coast and dedicated community members to hand out bags on the 4th, gently encouraging people to please pick up after themselves.
Did it work? It’s hard to say. We picked up even more trash (18,000 pounds more to be exact) than last year when we weren’t as engaged in the bag handout, but that’s likely more to do with the fact that this year’s holiday butted up against a weekend (last year, July 4th was on a Tuesday, limiting how many folks could travel and stay up late).
Shout out to the City of Ocean Shores crew for their hard work hauling bags to the dumpster! Photo credit: Kelly Jones
Washington isn't the only place with a fireworks problem, but we might be the worst when it comes to the amount of trash left on our beach. For more on our national July 5th effort, check out our recent blog post on 2024 Recap of July 5th, the Dirtiest Beach Day of the Year
Cleanups are not the solution
Here at Surfrider, our goal is source reduction. We need to stop producing and using unnecessary plastics. But cleanups are an important piece of that puzzle. During less chaotic cleanups, we sort and weigh trash to identify what kind of garbage we routinely find along our coasts. All those data go into our database, which we use to inform better policies around plastics.
We just published our annual 2023 Beach Cleanup Report analyzing our cleanup data from last year, based on the almost 200,000 pounds of trash our volunteers removed during almost a thousand cleanups.
Cigarette butts continue to be the #1 most littered item on Earth, but more and more we're seeing plastic and foam fragments in addition to single-use plastic food packaging such as bottles, wrappers, and straws.
Surfrider volunteers hosted almost one thousand cleanups in 2023, although the real number is likely much higher as not every cleanup is reported.
Huge thanks to everyone who was able to come help out at this July 5th cleanup! If you weren’t able to, or if you want to do more to support these kinds of efforts in your local community, consider becoming or renewing your membership as part of our summer membership drive! To sign up, head to your local chapter’s page, click the Donate button on the top right, and contribute what you can. Any donation amount signs you up for a membership, and proceeds go directly to your local chapter to support the important work they’re doing.
One of our volunteers heads out to catch some waves after a morning spent picking up trash - #SelfCare. Photo credit: Kelly Jones