Santa Monica Faces Pandemic Pollution

The City of Santa Monica's beach tractor that drags a rake to condition the sand, in Santa Monica, Calif., on Monday, May 3, 2021. (Marco Pallotti | The Corsair)

Trash pollution invades the Santa Monica community’s local beaches, across Will Rogers State Beach, Venice Beach, Santa Monica State Beach, and parking lots due to single-use plastics. The COVID-19 pandemic has had a large impact on the environmentally conscious efforts Santa Monica has made to combat pollution, such as the ban on single-use plastics.

“Prior to the pandemic, we did not have masks and gloves as a primary source of litter or marine debris. But we're seeing those more because they're in higher use,” said Shannon Parry, Chief Officer of Sustainability of Santa Monica. Parry mentioned the single-use plastic bag municipal ordinance that the city enforced in January 2019, before the pandemic hit.

“When the emergency orders were put in place...they required restaurants to use single-use products. All food service had to be takeout and all the takeout had to have single-use plastic,” said Parry. “We are protecting a short-term effort to protect human health and respond to COVID-19, [which] has resulted in a long-term change in the type of litter and material we're seeing on our beach.” This regulation change was drastic for the environment, according to Parry.

City of Santa Monica Chief Sustainability Officer, Shannon Parry, seen here on the beach near the pier, in Santa Monica, Calif., on Monday, May 3, 2021. (Marco Pallotti | The Corsair)

Santa Monica has invested in infrastructure to collect debris from the beaches. Brian McClure, the Landscape administrator from the Division of Public Works in Beach Maintenance, explains, “We have guys that go out with three John Deere tractors and they will drag a sand rake, it’s about eighteen feet wide...behind the tractor, and it goes up and down the coast...and it picks up all the trash, even buried trash.”

Santa Monica makes an effort to deep-clean the beach with the sand rakes, pick-up trash trucks, and the Santa Monica Shines “Clean Campaign,” which began on Earth Day, April 22, and ended on June 1. The campaign encourages beach cleaning by raffling a $100 gift card to be spent at any local business. Santa Monica Shines is the community partner outreach effort for the community’s economic recovery that provides resources to residents, businesses, and employees.

Peter James, the Chief Officer of Public Works for Santa Monica, wants “to reinforce that personal responsibility is our biggest tool [for] keeping our beaches clean, [and] protecting the health and well-being of our coastal aquatic life. We are there to ensure that the beach is maintained. But it's out of necessity because not everybody shares that same sense of responsibility. It starts at the individual [level], and then moves up from there”.

While the Santa Monica Office of Beach Maintenance cleans up the beaches, Santa Monica residents and beachgoers are still implored to pick up their trash. "It's up to each of us to reduce our single-use plastic consumption, and choose to reuse,” said Parry.

Parry says to those unmotivated to reuse materials, “small actions add up to big impacts. There are so many ways to make a difference, and if choosing to reuse is absolutely not the one that works for you, then choose something different. There is always a choice.” In her eyes, one can always do something different to save the environment.