In 2011, Clean Water Fund and local jurisdictions partnering in the Taking Out the Trash project, conducted a litter survey in four Bay Area cities: Richmond, South San Francisco, San Jose, and Oakland. The purpose of the study was to fill a gap in existing trash monitoring data for the marine environment.
This study results address the following questions:
- What is the composition of trash? What specific products enter impaired water-bodies surrounding
the San Francisco Bay? - Where do these products originate? What types of businesses, institutions, and operations are
responsible for making choices to use the products that most frequently escape into the environment?
Without this information, it was impossible to determine how best to stop the generation of trash at the source.