2008 Coastal Cleanup Day Tally Released

In September 2008, the Ocean Conservancy's 23rd International Coastal Cleanup Day netted the following waste from waterways and shorelines around the world in a single day:

• 6,800,000 pounds of debris, 11.4 million items overall
• 3,200,000 million cigarette butts (1.3 million in the US alone)
• 1,400,000 million plastic bags
• 942,000 food wrappers and containers
• 937,000 caps and lids
• 26,585 tires
• 19,500 fishing nets in the United Kingdom
• 11,000 diapers in the Philippines

Nearly 400,000 volunteers scoured about 17,000 miles of coastline, river bottoms and ocean floors during the event. In the course of picking up the trash, participants found 268 marine animals that survived being entangled in debris; 175 weren't so lucky and died.

Of the 104 participating countries, the US supplied about half the volunteers.

Read more in the SF Chronicle (http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2009/03/10/national/a090043D65.DTL) or at www.oceanconservancy.org.