Davenport Beach is beautiful. For being such a beautiful beach, it's also filled with quite a bit of trash, especially on the weekends. Trash all over the beach happens to some degree during the winter months, but it's especially bad during the summer. People often wonder why someplace so beautiful gets trashed so badly. There are a number of contributing factors.
Steep Slopes
Getting from the parking lot to the beach isn't an easy stroll. It takes real effort to get down to the beach, and much more effort to climb back up. Those who have the energy to make a few trips to the car early in the day to haul all their food, drinks, and other beach gear often don't have the energy to make several trips uphill late in the day to drag it all back. People who are lazy and don't want to carry heavy loads of empty bottles and other trash up the steep hills - that's a big reason so much gets left behind.
Party Beach
Davenport has become known as a party beach where a lot of young adults go to consume large amounts of alcohol. Having consumed the alcohol, they are much less likely to feel the need to carry all the heavy glass bottles up the hill late in the day, or when they have a hangover in the morning. Drinking combined with overnight camping seems to cause most of the trash problem on the beach.
No Single Organization in Charge
Davenport Beach, unfortunately, falls into a sort of no-man's land when it comes to who is responsible for it. The land is covered by several governmental organizations, with none of them fully in control. That means there is no specific group in charge of trash pick-up. Trash is only picked up once a week (on Mondays) at the parking lot and at the end of the trail across from the hotel. Anything left on the beach or the trail stays there until someone is willing to bring it to one of the two trash pick-up areas.
No Easy Solution
Unfortunately, there is no easy solution to these problems. While it would be ideal if people took personal responsibility to pack their own trash, the steepness of the trail back to the cars means those who are lazy won't. Even if you made access easier, the steepness would still deter a lot of people from packing out their own trash. In fact, it would likely increase the amount of trash, as more people would have easier access to the beach.
Having more enforcement of drinking and littering ordinances would be great, but it's not likely to happen. A big issue is that phone reception can be spotty in certain areas of the beach, making it potentially dangerous for law enforcement. An individual officer may not be able to contact backup, and there's always a potential danger when confronting a large group of intoxicated beachgoers. Putting several officers on regular patrol rounds isn't in the law enforcement budget.
So, What Can We Do?
Personally, I think that those of us who sea glass at Davenport have a responsibility to do what we can to keep the beach as clean as possible. There are a couple of steps we can take.
First, bring a garbage bag down with you each time you visit the beach. If everyone hauled a bit of trash back out each time they visit, the beach would stay a lot cleaner. There are a lot of volunteers who spend time and energy cleaning the beach, and we can show our appreciation and help them quite a bit by making a small effort with each visit.
Second, let's try to better educate those who do come down to the beach that there is no trash service. I may be wrong, but I think a lot of people assume that there is a group in charge of cleaning the beach, and if they know there isn't, they may be more likely to haul out their trash.