Santa Monica, Thursday — Forty eighth-grade students from a school in Santa Monica spent yesterday morning cleaning a beach north of the city. In three hours, they filled more than sixty large bags with rubbish.
The students worked in pairs. Each pair received gloves, a bag and a list. On the list, they marked every item they picked up, so that they could later count what they had found.
The results surprised them. They had expected to find mostly bottles and cans, but the most common items were small pieces of plastic, bottle caps and cigarette ends. "Some pieces were as small as rice," said Anna Bennett, 13. "You don't notice them until you get down on your knees."
The biggest find was an old fishing net, half buried in the sand. Inside it, the students found a small crab that was still alive. They carefully cut the net and returned the crab to the water.
Their science teacher, Dr. Ryan Khoury, said that the list will be sent to an environmental organization that collects information about pollution on American beaches. "This was not just a cleaning day," he said. "It was real research." The students plan to return to the same beach in the spring to see whether things have changed.