July 4 revelers mar Tahoe beaches with trash
People seem to think the beaches of Tahoe are their personal trash can. Photo/League to Save Lake Tahoe
By Kathryn Reed
Even though there is less actual beach in the basin, those using it keep leaving the same amount of trash.
For the past three years volunteers have picked up about 1,600 pounds of trash on July 5 – the day after the busiest day of the year for Tahoe beaches. This doesn’t count the garbage actually left in trash cans.
“Once again, the most common trash items found were cigarette butts and other plastic pieces, which this year we separated and are shipping to a facility that can recycle unusual plastics to be reused in new products,” Chris Carney with the League to Save Lake Tahoe told Lake Tahoe News.
The League started these cleanup efforts after a lawsuit was filed in 2013 by a Marla Bay couple who were tired of the fireworks debris that kept floating on their property. The following year groups like the League to Save Lake Tahoe started organized beach cleanups.
Meyers resident Kenny Curtzwiler started rallying his staff in 1997 to clean the majority of El Dorado Beach, along with Regan Beach and the walkways surrounding Highway 50 in South Lake Tahoe.
Volunteers for the last few summers have been able to walk from Regan Beach to Timber Cove. Not so this year. A large stretch of it is under water.
Individuals and group participated. At Zephyr Shoals a group of Generation Green students were part of the mix.
In all, 316 volunteers scoured 5.64 miles of beach.
South Lake Tahoe should consider a ban on smoking in all public parks, which has been done already by many cities. For big public events, etc., perhaps they can have a smoking kiosk with ash-trays for smokers – away from the general public. I saw this at a San Mateo hospital – where they constructed a smoke-station like a bus stop shelter (small). It is just not acceptable anymore to subject the general public (including kids) to second-hand smoke, or the rest of us to the discarded BUTTS.
Thanks to the volunteers who picked up all this trash!