Essentially all of the plastic from my Picking Up the Pieces page, are from the surrounding area of San Anselmo and Fairfax. Primarily San Anselmo, and more specifically, from the same 2-3 places I take my dogs for walks.
This page is dedicated to the plastic I collect here in Marin, beyond my neighborhood.
This is my second contribution on this page - you can scroll down to see my sizable first collection from Horseshoe Bay in Sausalito - But this one is from Limantour Beach in the Point Reyes National Seashore.
It's a really delightful spot - big long stretch of beach - more of a locals sort of spot than say, Stinson Beach (I love Stinson all the same).
It's not overrun with plastic at first glance - It looks pristine actually...
But like pretty much everywhere else I go, when I look close enough, I start to see it...
...and then I collect it
...and then I mull it all over... like
"How necessary or unavoidable were ANY of these items?"
Anything here for which we could rightfully say "Sorry Ocean, but we simply can't be expected to function as a species without... ... juiceboxes.... or ziploc bags... or plastic straws. Nope. No Can Do. So yeah, sorry this is becoming such a "thing" for you (not wanting us humans to use you as our global dumping ground for things that never biodegrade, and that are killing your inhabitants), buuuuuuuuut, we LOVE convenience, so... ... bummer... for you especially."?
Not as I see it.
I wanted to start as far south as I could, so my first collection is from Horseshoe Bay "the northeastern frontier of the Golden Gate Bridge".
I'm rarely surprised by the amount of plastic I find, but for Horseshoe Bay, I'm making an exception. I could plant myself in the sand and spend several minutes just collecting the pieces in arms reach, not to mention the pieces tangled through and through, in the long band of seaweed washed up on shore.
The next nine images represent a roughly hour and a half collection.
The pieces in the sand are much smaller than the ones shown above - I stuck with this size to preserve what's left of my sanity
Here we have a few lighters, some plastic cig tips and spent "wads" from shotguns - wait, which of these things is not like the other?
mostly styrofoam and a piece of plastic quarter round
even that dumb pink daisy sign is made out of foam
"Baked!" is right! - These bags are really feeling the sun and the salt water
Now I'd be remiss not to mention I had my intrepid helpers...
But it's probably also worth mentioning that they might have been distracted at times...
As I was busy collecting, two twenty-something'ish women were on the pier just above me, remarking on how breathtakingly beautiful this place was. They were taking pictures, and talking about how much they are loving their visit. They were staying at the equally breathtaking Cavallo Point Lodge, nestled on the hill just behind us (note to self, I should check in with the Lodge to see if they would switch to paper straws and honestly compostable products). But it reinforced the point to me, that you really only begin to grasp the gravity of the plastic problem when you choose to see it. It's still easy to overlook it, and see only the "views", though not for too much longer.