Hundreds of volunteers to sweep Venice Beach for international coastal cleanup event

Hundreds of volunteers are expected at a coastal cleanup event this weekend at Venice Beach.

The event is being hosted by Ocean Conservancy and is part of an international cleanup event which has been taking place for decades.

The International Coastal Cleanup is the world’s largest beach and waterway cleanup effort, organizers said. Since it began in 1986, more than 17 million volunteers have removed over 350 million pounds of trash across the globe.

Last year, 40,000 people participated in events across California, removing more than a half-million individual pieces of trash from the state’s waterways.

This latest cleanup event comes on the heels of the passage of California Assembly Bill 1628, which aims to prevent microfiber pollution, including microplastics, by requiring all new washing machines sold in California by 2029 have a filter to catch the unwanted pollutant.

Studies have shown that millions of pounds of microfibers enter California waters from washing machines every year.

The filters have been shown to be a cost-effective and simple solution that can reduce the emission of microfibers by up to 90%, the bill’s author says.

Assemblymember Tina McKinnor (D – Inglewood) is the author of the legislation, and the upcoming Venice Beach cleanup will take place within her district.

Anja Brandon, a plastics pollution expert with Ocean Conservancy, was a key expert in the bill’s drafting process and will be on-hand for the cleanup.

Assembly Bill 1628 is headed to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s desk, and advocates expect he will sign the bill into law.

The Coastal Cleanup event is taking place at Venice Beach on Saturday from 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.

For additional information about the event, click here.

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