This product was discovered as litter most often on San Diego's beaches

SAN DIEGO (FOX 5/KUSI)-- Litter has long been the scourge of San Diego's beaches, but what are the products frequently found disposed of?

In their 2023 Marine Debris Report, San Diego Coastkeeper and Surfrider Foundation broke down the type of littered materials picked up most often in their beach clean-up efforts last year, and products made of plastic-- to no surprise-- represented most of the garbage they recuperated.

According to the report, 8 out of every 10 pieces of trash gathered across more than 260 separate beach and inland cleanups in 2023 were some type of plastic. This consists of plastic fragments, food wrappers, food service products, bottles and caps, and bags.

At 21.1 percent, fragments represented the largest share of all items collected in these clean-ups. According to the nonprofits, 63,433 pieces of plastic fragments were collected in 2023-- the huge majority being mesoplastics, or bits smaller than 20 millimeters in size.

" This highlights the requirement for additional policy work targeting unnecessary single-use plastics that typically end up on our beaches and in the ocean," Coastkeeper and Surfrider Foundation stated in a joint declaration on Monday.

The material that made up the 2nd greatest share of all disposed of items was broadened polystyrene foam (EPS), likewise referred to as Styrofoam, with 49,402 products gathered in 2015-- up about 3 percent from 2022.

That boost comes as elected authorities across the state are working to phase out usage of Styrofoam, consisting of the enactment of bans on their use by 9 cities throughout San Diego County.

" With these foam prohibits in place and a potential statewide foam foodware restriction going into effect next year, we are enthusiastic the amount of foam pollution along our coasts will decrease in the years to come," the report read.

These numbers pressed both plastic fragments and EPS above cigarette butts-- the long-running leading littered product found at San Diego's beaches-- for the very first time. In 2023, cigarettes represented about 15 percent of all products collected, down from about 20 to 25 percent in previous years.

The report kept in mind that attending to cluttered cigarette butts is still a big challenge, as it stays one of the top products found during clean-ups in spite of public smoking bans at all publicly-owned beaches in San Diego County.

In overall, the report stated the 2 companies gathered 19,216 pounds of trash from coastal parks and coasts throughout 2023, with upwards of 300,000 private products.

" Our beach clean-up programs shed a local light on a global issue, the origins of which are much more intricate than the common understanding that we have a ‘‘ litter issue,'" the nonprofits composed in the report. "The short answer is that we produce tremendously more waste than at any other time in history."

San Diego amongst cities with the majority of eco-friendly homes in the U.S

. These clean-ups, the ecological groups argue, are more efficient when steps are likewise made to produce less garbage-- both while at the beach and in places that stream to the waters off the coast of San Diego.

"Individuals, services, and governments all have a role to play in keeping our oceans tidy," the nonprofits added in the report.

The full 2023 Marine Debris report from Coastkeeper and Surfider can be discovered here.

For those that wish to get involved, Coastkeeper and Surfrider will be hosting a joint cleanup event at Ocean Beach Dog Beach next month on Saturday, May 11 from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. Additional clean-up dates can be found on the nonprofits' particular websites.