Thousands of volunteers clean up SF’s beaches

Seagulls stay ahead of volunteers spreading out across Ocean Beach to collect trash for the annual California coastal cleanup in San Francisco. Seagulls stay ahead of volunteers spreading out across Ocean Beach to collect trash for the annual California coastal cleanup in San Francisco. Photo: Paul Chinn, The Chronicle Buy photo Photo: Paul Chinn, The Chronicle Image 1 of / 10 Caption Close Thousands of volunteers clean up SF’s beaches 1 / 10 Back to Gallery

San Francisco, the city that has made even McDonald’s compost its leftover Big Macs, still has a problem with trash dirtying its beaches.

Thousands of volunteers showed up at beaches around the Bay Area on Saturday morning, sifting through sand and impaling stray wrappers with sticks as part of the annual Coastal Cleanup Day that spans about 2,000 miles of the state’s shoreline at 920 different sites, led by the California Coastal Commission.

“When we come out here in the morning, you can see San Francisco, one of the largest markets in the world, looks like a garbage dump,” said Corey Mason, a DJ bumping tunes for volunteers along a stretch of Ocean Beach along the Great Highway, at Golden Gate Park.

This year, 1,325 volunteers recovered 4,100 pounds of trash from the beaches lining the west side of San Francisco, said Denise McKinney, an organizer of the Ocean Beach cleanup with the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy.

In a decade of cleanups, McKinney has come across anything and everything — spare tires, luggage, a sofa and a fake Christmas tree — all coated in sand. On Saturday alone, volunteers unearthed a burnt outhouse, a corset bone and a large metal pipe.

“One woman came back and said her daughter learned what a condom was today,” McKinney said with a laugh. “Sex ed on the beach.”

Much of the mess tends to be blamed on homeless people on the beach or young partygoers not cleaning up after their bonfires, but that’s only part of the problem. More often than not, it’s litter in San Francisco’s neighborhoods, from the Richmond District to Ocean View, that swirls down storm drains and winds up in the bay, to be washed up on the beach.

“The cleanup itself is only part of what we’re doing here,” McKinney said. “We’re trying to get people to understand where this trash is actually coming from. ... It’s coming from our neighborhoods, not people going out on the beach.”

Most of the litter is pretty commonplace: countless cigarette butts and plenty of beer bottles. Lots and lots of cigarette butts.

Discarded butts are far and away the most popular pieces of litter on all of California’s beaches, said Eben Schwartz, manager for the Coastal Commission’s Marine Debris program. Organizers this year placed an emphasis on the dangers of ashing cigarettes in the sand.

“These things need to be properly disposed of because they’re poisoning our waters and our marine wildlife,” Schwartz said, adding that cigarettes make up about 40 percent of the recovered trash.

Two friends and high school seniors walked Ocean Beach, stopping to snag gum wrappers and other little litter caught in the sand.

“You’d be surprised at what people forget to throw away,” said Keesha Patron, 17, to her friend Tanya Fisher, 18.

Why did the two college-bound teenagers give up a Saturday of sleeping in?

“This is our environment,” Fisher said. “This is our Earth. It’s our responsibility to take care of it. There’s no way to reverse the damage, but I wish there was.”

Michael Bodley is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: mbodley@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @michael_bodley