Thumbs up: Keeping California’s beaches pristine

Thousands of volunteers combed California parks, beaches and streams on Saturday, collecting 553,000 pounds of cigarette butts, food wrappers, beverage containers, discarded clothes and a surprising variety of other trash left behind by careless visitors. Among the unusual finds reported around the state were an unopened bottle of chardonnay, a bottle containing a dead mouse, a set of vampire teeth, wigs, a gumball machine, a brass spittoon and a severed house-arrest ankle bracelet.

More than 54,000 volunteers took part in the 33rd annual California Coastal Cleanup Day, an effort sponsored by the state Coastal Commission that has spread from the Golden State’s beaches to include inland parks, rivers, lakes and streams as well. Cleanup Day also has expanded to other states and countries. In addition to trash, the California volunteers collected more than 20,000 pounds of recyclables that will be redeemed. A big thumbs up to all who took part.