Trash Buildup by Diana Lee (Dahyun Lee) Gunn High School

Recently, trash has been rapidly building up in creeks despite the fact that it can have disastrous effects on the environment. Accumulated trash can impact water quality, destroy the beauty of local creeks, and kill the purpose of creeks, which is to prevent flood. Creeks are overfilled with plastic bottles, plastic bags, food wastes, food containers and cigarette butts. The tremendous amount of plastic bags is especially dangerous because they can choke and kill wildlife and pollute waters. Nonetheless, bay area residents continue to use 3.8 billion plastic bags every year, each of which are used for approximately twelve minutes. These unnecessary wastes flow into the ocean and join the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, an area twice the size of Texas and continuously growing. The contaminated water also affects humans, as we drink the water from creeks that flow into the rivers.
Luckily, concerned residents of the San Francisco bay took action to protect and restore the bay. Save the Bay, a nonprofit environmental organization established in 1961, strives to restore habitats and save wildlife. Last year, the organization set up Bay Trash Hotspots 2010, an internet poll that allowed people to vote on which creek or shoreline should be cleaned up throughout 2011. San Mateo County took up as much as 33 spots from the 225 hotspots in which toxic levels of trash were discovered in the creeks. Save the Bay asked the residents to vote for one out of seven hotspots, (two of the hotspots were Colma Creek and Redwood Creek from San Mateo County) that the organization will adopt and send in volunteers to clean up. The winning hotspot was Redwood Creek in Redwood City (San Mateo County) and this creek will have the chance to be restored back to its natural state if possible. Volunteers will put in effort to clean up debris from commercial and residential passages, high traffic zones and general littering in downtown Redwood City.

Now, the ugly truth about the pollution in creeks must be known: Out of the 3,800,000,000 plastic bags used in the bay area every year, at least 1,000,000 are thrown away in the creeks. This means that there are 100 bags for every seal, duck and pelican combined. The importance of restoring pollution has never been more blatant, and there are always open opportunities to volunteer with Save the Bay. In addition, Save the Bay is urging residents to sign a petition requesting bay area mayors and city councils to ban Styrofoam and plastic bags at https://www.savesfbay.... One simple step can make a huge difference.

For more information, please visit http://www.savesfbay....