Wish you could beat the summer heat by hitting the beach most every day? Sara Bayles (below, on Santa Monica beach) does — to pick up trash. The 32-year-old Santa Monica resident’s part way through a goal to to spend 20 minutes of 365 non-consecutive days cleaning the stretch of sand between Life Guard Station 26 and 27 in Santa Monica — and blog about her feat at The Daily Ocean.

I wrote briefly about Sara’s eco-project earlier — but this weekend, I joined Sara on a cleanup to ask her about her beach-friendly project — and to pick up some trash myself. Here’s how the beach looked when I arrived at 7 pm:

Pretty, right? Look just a bit closer though, and you’ll find a multitude of cigarette butts. Our 20-minute cleanup haul included not just one, but four flipflops — including one complete pair!

We also bagged a bunch of sand toys, too many band-aids and straws, a sad plastic water bottle, and lots of shredded plastic bags. And while  picking this stuff up, I asked Sarah a whole bunch of beachy questions:

Why a 20-minute cleanup?

Sara: Nobody thinks 20 minutes is a long time. and so I want to see how much I can get in 20 minutes — without cheating. I’ve made little games for myself — like if I’m done and walking off the beach, and I step over a piece of trash, of course I pick it up. But I’ve consciously had to give myself some parameters. Otherwise you’d be out here all night.

We were in Zuma and I kept picking up stuff and I chased a seagull so it wouldn’t eat aluminum foil today. I can’t get away from it — It’s just what I do.

What made you start?

I felt very hopeless about a lot of different things that are happening to the ocean. Under the environmental umbrella, there’s a number of things — How the ocean absorbs CO2, or the Pacific Trash Gyre that’s getting a lot of attention right now. There’s so much going on that needs attention.

I wanted to pick something that I could do that was solid and concrete. I love Surfrider and Heal the Bay. And they have organized beach cleanups — but for whatever reason I’m never able to go. So I thought, who needs an organized cleanup? Just grab a bag, go to the damn beach, and pick some stuff up. And it evolved from there.

What keeps you going?

At the end of the day, when I’m done here, I can say there’s a huge bag of trash that’s not going on the beach for tonight. And it feels really good. It’s just one minuscule concrete way to feel like I’m making a little bit of a difference.

I guess I’m wondering how you stay positive — how you deal with the knowledge that the problems are really so much bigger. For example, if you talk to the Heal the Bay people, they’ll point to how beach cleanups are less about actually getting the beach clean — because the next day the trash’ll all be back again — and more about educating people and getting them involved.

You blogged about finding  tampon applicators on the beach, for example — but those tampons aren’t there because people are actually changing tampons right on the beach.  As we both know, it’s because of sewage spillage and urban runoff. How do you deal with all that when you’re doing what you’re doing?

It’s a little tiny end result that illustrates an enormous problem. Hopefully what I’ve been able to do so far and what I’ll continue to do, is when I take pictures of disturbing things like a tampon or a condom or a syringe or dog poop, I then will link to other places on the web where you can read more about it. I just highlight it — then people will start thinking about it, maybe?

I want to keep people’s attention and focus. So if I can hopefully put up mostly pictures and a little bit of text, and impart some of how I feel about things without ranting or hitting anybody over the head with it, the good and the bad, then try and get people’s awareness levels up about what’s happening….

Because this is the end result (pointing at bag of trash), and it is a little bit futile. Isn’t it sort of interesting that one person at the end of a year will have collected a ton of trash in 20 minutes a day — on a beach in Santa Monica which is well funded, environmentally aware? It gets dragged once a day. The trash gets picked up 365 days a week. There’s anywhere from 8 – 10 trash cans between lifeguard stations. I cover this much of the beach(points between lifeguard stations 26 and 27) — and in 5 minutes I collect a pound. That’s crazy.

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Above’s what Sara and I collected — and I’m a bit embarrassed to admit Sara’s haul was 3 times heavier than my own. I guess I need some practice!

A former ceramics and horseback riding teacher, Sara’s now quit both jobs to work on a young adult fiction book titled Calliope and the Heart of the Sea. Yes, it’s about a girl saving the ocean! Sara’s also married to a marine biologist who teaches at Santa Monica College — who walks to work! Sara drive her Prius to the beach — and I’m kind of on a mission now to get the girl a bike because she doesn’t have one yet!

Follow Sara via The Daily Ocean and Twitter to find out when Sara’s hitting the beach next. Sara and I are formulating plans to put together a joint Daily Ocean – green LA girl beach cleanup one summer evening — with all readers invited join the beach party. Are you interested?

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