CSULB’s American Marketing Association (AMA) and Public Relations Student Society of America (PRSSA) hosted a beach clean-up on Saturday afternoon at Bayshore Beach.
Brenda Melara, PRSSA president and a CSULB senior public relations major said their organization wanted to “contribute to Long Beach” and the “best way to do that was with a beach clean-up.”
Virginia Hobbs, AMA director of events and a CSULB senior marketing major said their organization wanted to promote environmental awareness and expand “its reach and partner with other groups” after two years of remote learning due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“With the whole zoom situation, people haven’t been able to connect and we wanted to collaborate,” Hobbs said.
The beach clean-up started at Bayshore Avenue and East Ocean Boulevard, and over a dozen students found various waste products throughout the beach such as cigarettes, foam cups, plastic bottles, and masks.
“I [found a lot] of glass,” said Minh Le, the AMA director of fundraising and a fourth-year business administration major. “One piece looked like it was part of a mirror.”
Darlene Malolos, a fourth-year marketing major wanted to help take care of the beach. Before her time at CSULB, she organized beach clean-ups with her friends.
“My friends and I weren’t in a group or anything, we just wanted to help [the environment],” Malolos said. “I feel like we need to take care of our home and make sure everyone else gets to enjoy it.”
As both organizations finished their clean-up at Glendora Avenue, they began exchanging phone numbers and social media handles.
The event organizers also discussed ways beach-goers and local businesses could help do their part to keep the community clean.
Alyssa Canales, the PRSSA vice president and a fourth-year public relations major, said she thinks it is better for businesses to “make the shift [towards] biodegradable packaging.”
“All of this trash is the [peak] of these companies,” Canales said. “[This] creates mass waste which goes into the ocean [and] the fish eat it.”