Friday, June 26, 2009

Day 30 - June 24

Life Guard Station 26, Ocean Park, Santa Monica CA
trash collected for 20 min.
estimated pounds collected today - 3.9
estimated pounds collected to date - 178.7
My daily plastic water bottle...
By the way, the West Los Angeles/Malibu Chapter meeting is next Tues., June 30, at the Santa Monica Youth Hostel, at 7:00. 
Santa Monica Youth Hostel is located at 1436 Second St., Santa Monica 90401
Do The Dew! Isn't that the slogan put forth by this brand? How about Recycle the Dew Damnit!
Does it have the same ring? Maybe not........
Here is another link for a site called The Action Recycling Center 
There you can find out fun facts like:
United States in two weeks produces enough cans, if stacked end on end, would be high enough to reach the moon.
I've mentioned Dr. Carl Safina before of the Blue Ocean Institute, which can be found in my links section of this blog. As I was uploading my pictures I went to my bookshelf to find his book, Voyage of the Turtle, which is missing. Rats!
But I found Song for the Blue Ocean, also a great book by Dr. Safina.

"For each pound of shrimp kept, two to eight pounds of sea creatures are killed and dumped. In the western Pacific, the region with the highest by-kill, an inconceivable-but measurable-nine million metric tons of marine life are killed and discarded annually." - Song for the Blue Ocean.
What does a plastic sand toy turtle have to do with shrimp you may ask? Well, a lot. Until the 90's shrimp nets had no exit for turtles to get out of their nets that drag across the ocean floor. Turtles graze on sea grasses and other things there, and so were often caught in the nets. They died. Now there is something called Turtle Escape Devices, or T.E.D. for short, that are put into the back of the net. It works like a trap door to let the turtles out. This was a 20 year battle that Dr. Safina expands on in Voyage of the Turtle, a book mostly about the Leatherback Turtle. He also says that, "Shrimp fishing is like going deer hunting, and cutting down the forest to find the deer." 
I choose not to eat shrimp. I also don't mention it when I am with friends at a sushi restaurant, but maybe I should. I try to just be an example, and if it comes up, tell them why I don't eat shrimp. I don't want to be a "preachy tree-hugger", but perhaps I should mention it more. Many people do not know why shrimp fishing is so destructive. 
"I've learned that you can't please everyone, and that it is best not to try to. My feeling is: Know yourself, and allow yourself to be known, and you will have lived." - Dr. Safina
I guess I'm mentioning the shrimp....