The summer sun was just beginning to peek over the stately bluff-top homes that overlook Aliso Beach, but Greg Viviani had already embarked on a most unpleasant scavenger hunt. He moved quickly, scanning the white sandy shore — a terrain he’s known since childhood. “A straw,” he called out, snapping up the tiny yellow plastic piece with his trash picker.
“Look at this.” Viviani identified the debris scattered along the shore as he found it: a new pair of Crocs, cigarette butts, edges of chip bags, shoe laces, tissues buried in the sand, bottle caps, an empty glass bottle of green apple flavored Smirnoff Ice. And so much plastic.
His most unusual find? A sex toy abandoned in the sand, he said. Each item he grabbed was met with an exasperated sigh as he shoved it into a reusable bag to haul to the trash . After an hour, the bag was full.
But his work wasn’t done. Just steps from the exclusive Montage Resort, where an ocean view room costs upwards of $1,000 per night during the summer, waste was overflowing from trash cans on Treasure Island beach. A colony of seagulls battled over a Costco rotisserie chicken carcass.
Resort employees continued past the mess to set up white beach chairs and umbrellas on the sand for guests. “It never ends,” Viviani lamented. “You can clean it all up in one day and it’ll be covered with trash tomorrow.
” Laguna Beach residents have for months been pushing city officials to get a handle on what they call “destructive touri.