{"id":974717,"date":"2026-08-02T02:06:19","date_gmt":"2026-08-02T02:06:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/974717\/"},"modified":"2026-08-02T02:06:19","modified_gmt":"2026-08-02T02:06:19","slug":"volunteers-remove-more-than-100-pounds-of-trash-in-ocean-beach-cleanup-nbc-7-san-diego","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/974717\/","title":{"rendered":"Volunteers remove more than 100 pounds of trash in Ocean Beach cleanup \u2013 NBC 7 San Diego"},"content":{"rendered":"

As hot summer weather continues to draw crowds to San Diego’s coastline, dozens of volunteers spent Saturday morning helping keep Ocean Beach clean.<\/p>\n

The Surfrider Foundation’s San Diego County Chapter<\/a> organized the cleanup, bringing together 76 volunteers who spent about two hours collecting litter from the beach. By the end of the event, they had removed 109 pounds of trash, including more than 800 cigarette butts.<\/p>\n

Volunteer Elda Cervantes said she joined friends for the cleanup to give back to the community while enjoying the weekend.<\/p>\n

“We’re doing this just for enjoying the summer, enjoying the weekend, but also giving back to the community and treating our beaches \u2014 what they deserve,” Cervantes said.<\/p>\n

Ocean Beach Site Captain Charles Biset has been participating in Surfrider cleanups for roughly 20 years. He said volunteers have noticed periods where trash accumulates more quickly.<\/p>\n

“It seems like there’s been waves \u2014 pun intended \u2014 of trash and stuff,” Biset said.<\/p>\n

The cleanup comes as the Surfrider Foundation released its annual Beach Cleanup Report<\/a>, highlighting the types of litter volunteers most commonly find along shorelines.<\/p>\n

According to the organization, cigarette butts remain the single most common item collected during beach cleanups. The report says smoking-related waste, including cigarette butts and nicotine pouches, now accounts for one in every four littered items found on beaches nationwide.<\/p>\n

“Cigarette butts are actually the most common item that we find again and again at beach cleanups,” said Janie Overland, partnerships activation coordinator for the Surfrider Foundation.<\/p>\n

\"<\/p>\n

Overland said the waste poses a threat to wildlife.<\/p>\n

“They’re often small and can be mistaken for food by marine animals, which is awful if they’re getting ingested,” she said.<\/p>\n

Additionally, cigarette filters and nicotine pouches are not biodegradable and can remain in the environment for years if they are not properly disposed of.<\/p>\n

Surfrider’s national report found volunteers collected more than 330,000 pounds of trash during beach cleanups in 2025. Overland said that’s roughly equivalent to the weight of a blue whale.<\/p>\n

For Cervantes, helping clean the beach is about preserving one of San Diego’s greatest natural resources.<\/p>\n

“We’re given this one home, this one beach and if we just kind of let it be trash, then we won’t have much of it left,” she said.<\/p>\n

She hopes more people will pitch in to help keep local beaches clean.<\/p>\n

“We want to clean up as much as we can so that we can see it all nice and pretty again,” Cervantes said. “Beautiful sunny San Diego, you know?”<\/p>\n

The Surfrider Foundation hosts beach cleanups throughout San Diego County every weekend and is always looking for additional volunteers. If you’re interested in getting involved, you can visit the volunteer page<\/a> on their website.<\/p>\n

This story was originally reported for broadcast by NBC San Diego. AI tools helped convert the story to a digital article, and an NBC San Diego journalist edited the article for publication.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As hot summer weather continues to draw crowds to San Diego’s coastline, dozens of volunteers spent Saturday morning…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":974718,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5134],"tags":[5229,14079,1582,276,746,10086,3549,3550,7264,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":["post-974717","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-america","tag-beaches","tag-ca","tag-california","tag-environment","tag-ocean-beach","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-county","tag-sandiego","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/117023474330978152","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/974717","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=974717"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/974717\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/974718"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=974717"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=974717"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=974717"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}