OCEAN BEACH, CA. One of our bloggers, Jon Carr, has just written a new song for OBceans about his experiences picking up trash and painting out tagging the past couple week. Here it is – sung to the tune of “The Twelfth Day of Christmas”:
On the 22nd of July the homeless left for me
A twelve pack of cheap beer
Eleven plastic bottles
Ten (thousand) cigarette butts
Nine dirty blankets
Eight plastic baggies
Seven fast food wrappers
Six graffiti paintings
FIVE BROKEN BOTTLES!
Four magic markers
Three pairs of sandals
Two stinky socks
And a bag of hallucinogenic mushrooms!
By the way, says Jon, this is all true! Attached is a picture of one of the bags that he had this morning. Jon reports:
It’s crazy out there. But the good news is, the tags are getting a lot smaller. We are winning. The sad news is the litter seems to be getting worse. This is the second time in two weeks that I’ve easily surpassed 50lbs of trash on a weekday morning.
{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
This trash is a typical symptom of what some people are really made of. The I don’t give a SH*#’s , this is a common aliment now a days.
“Ten (thousand) cigarette butts”
Dude, that Surfrider Buttflickers sticker that you gave me, I put it on my ride and sometimes I’ll go out and there will be butts on the ground directly underneath it.
The Veteran’s rock area is cleaning up mighty fine though, thanks to you and all who helped including Bob Nelson who cleans up that area at least twice a week.
I realize I sort of generalized that only the homeless trash the cliffs. That wasn’t what I meant. The song was just meant to be silly. There are a lot of well off kids down there throwing their trash on the ground too. Hope you just got a good chuckle at the least.
Speaking of cig butts……Sunday morning A GLORIOUS Morning it was , we sat at Nicks had Bfast and admired the beautiful beach, waves and view. We left Nicks camera in hand and headed towards the seawall and over to the Hidden Garden. As we crossed the street I saw two women smoking on the sidewalk close to the street. As they fininshed the cancer stick they threw it down on the sidewalk, crushed it with shoe and kicked it in the gutter. Then they headed out to enjoy the beautiful beach, sand , ocean and sunny weather. As they did this I said ” you know that butt ends up in the ocean right?” They sheepishly went back pick up the butts and put them in the trash can that was a WHOLE 15 feet away ……The more I see people the more I am amazed.
Jim, I did the same thing to a guy that dropped one mere feet from one of those receptacles.
The other day though I did call 1-877-211-2888 on some loser who flicked his butt on West Point Loma. Surfrider wants all the info too. Make, Model, Color, Plate #, Driver or Passenger…but, (no pun intended) it was worth it! ;)
Thanks for doing what you can to help make our community and ocean a clean one. I love walking along the cliffs and cannot stand the sight of the trash left behind, or the trash that leaves it behind. I as well do what I can to clean up after these people. Maybe it’s time us permanent residents of Ocean Beach should start policeing our own community. If we don’t, the real police, tourists, homeless and drifters certainly are not. “The kids” that hang out under the pier and in the large group at the north end of the cliffs are without a doubt the main culprits. Lets keep the pressure on them and let them know that if they come to our community they are going to keep it clean.
Thanks Rob,
I head down at least twice a week with a few trashbags and some paint for graffiti paint-over (IT’S NOT ART DAMMIT!!!!). Anyway, get a hold of me through the rag. Frank will give you my email. My vision is having a network of dedicated locals that can share days or work together to make less work so that all the burden isn’t on one or two of us to clean up this mess. The past few months that I’ve been involved in this work have been both frustrating and rewarding.
I understand today there are some representatives from the Park and Rec dept., a rep from San Diego Urban Corps, members of San Diego’s graffiti task force, and a few of my counterparts walking the cliffs with other city leaders to try and get a handle on the problem of litter and graffiti/tagging. We should start seeing the cliffs more closely monitored soon. It’s unfortunate that any of this has to be done, but it’s getting so gross down there, I wouldn’t even be opposed to closing the entire cliff park after a certain hour.