Great job to everyone who came out and took the time to help during California Coastal Cleanup Day.

Check out some of the crazy stuff they found here.

It was pretty amazing to see so many people slapped the gloves on to get their hands dirty in the sand.

More than 800,000 people from California have removed 12 million pounds of junk from the beach since 1985. The event coincides with the International Coastal Cleanup, which brings together about 75 countries cleaning beaches on the same day.

I chatted with the coastal commission’s organizer Eben Schwartz, who gave me the following stats for volunteers who showed up:

 California
(70 percent of cleanup sites reporting)

55,634 volunteers
742,154 pounds of debris
106,500 pounds of recyclable material

Orange County
(About 50 percent of sites reporting)

1,992 volunteers
41,003 pounds of debris
9,109 pounds of recyclable material

Here’s some crazy things found during the clean up:

- Family of crawdads living in a purse in the San Joaquin Valley
- 52 pounds of dog hair in bag
- Soccer ball, rusty scissors in Orange County

I’ll have the full results in by early next week. Meanwhile, if you came out to help, tell us where you went and what you found in the comments section below!

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