Coastal cleanup volunteers say it felt good to get dirty, clearing Wildcat Creek and Shimada Park

Dozens of volunteers worked with the community organization Urban Tilth to clean up Wildcat Creek in North Richmond Ballpark on Saturday morning, extracting chunks of tires, stretches of inner tube, mud-encrusted plastic bottles, solitary shoes, a tired-looking soccer ball, and a plethora of other man-made waste from around spindly trees that hide the waterway.

“It feels really good to come out and be part of a group like this, get dirty, get bitten by mosquitoes,” said Wittiker Schlauoh-Saiyawong, who joined the crew, one of many that participated in the annual California Coastal Cleanup Day. The statewide initiative is responsible for removing 26.8 million pounds of trash from the coastline and waterways since 1985, according to the California Coastal Commission.

Bay Area waterways carry trash into Wildcat Creek from as far as Tilden Park in the Berkeley hills. If the debris is not removed, it washes into San Francisco Bay.

Urban Tilth employee Katherine Hurtado hands gardening gloves to a co-worker wheeling inner tubes from Wildcat Creek. (All photos by Georgie Pease)

Volunteers inventoried the items they collected on cards that will go to the Coastal Commission, which works with the Ocean Conservancy to maintain a database of what volunteers have removed from aquatic ecosystems each year. In addition to protecting Richmond’s ecosystems, Urban Tilth ecologist Nathan Bickart said the cleanup brings people together “to care for the land and to emphasize that the land, the soil, the water, the air is the bedrock of our community and the health of our community.”

The Wildcat Creek cleanup was one of numerous Coastal Cleanup events in Richmond. Nonprofits, community groups and the East Bay Regional Park District also organized volunteers to tackle trash at Marina Bay, Point Isabel and Point Pinole.

On a shoreline, lots of buckets are lined with blue and white plastic bags. — Cleanup buckets at Shimada Friendship Park.

At Shimada Friendship Park, families, teens and government officials clambered across boulders sloping from a bike path to the water, piling pulled debris into white buckets.

“Dude, there’s like a million bottle caps over here,” said Christopher Ibanez, calling his friend over to help him. Nearby, a young child ran to show his mother a chunk of driftwood. “This looks like a dolphin,” the boy exclaimed.

Trash is one of many contaminants polluting Richmond’s waterways. Oil, hydrocarbons, metals and industrial chemicals are also prevalent. While addressing chemical contamination is an ongoing, complex and costly battle, plastic pollution is an environmental threat that volunteer-driven cleanups have significant power to address.

Sitting on rocks by water are a woman in a dark cap, sunglasses and green T-shirt, a little girl in Mini Mouse ears and a yellow T-shirt and another little girl, who is standing with a white bucket, dressed in pink with a pink bow in her hair. — On Shimada Friendship Park’s shoreline, Katie Rogers picks up trash with her daughter and a friend.

Eben Schwartz, who has been directing the event for the California Coastal Commission for 26 years, said the cleanup has been effective. “It has caused changes in legislation, and even the way in which our society produces and consumes goods. It may be only three hours long, but it has ripples that are felt throughout the year,” he said.

Statewide bans on plastic bags and straws, laws against smoking on state beaches, and local policies banning Styrofoam takeout containers were all influenced by data that volunteers collected, Schwartz said.

Plastic pollution is “very much a climate issue,” said Schwartz, citing the U.S. oil industry’s plans to increase plastic production by 40% over the next two decades. Schwartz hopes Coastal Cleanup data will continue to support efforts to regulate the production, import and sale of plastic products.

At Wildcat Creek, Isabel Azamar was happy to do her part, and planned to tell her classmates at Making Waves Academy Charter School about her experience, saying, “It’ll hopefully encourage more people to go out and volunteer.”