Day 156 - Sept. 22, 2010

Santa Monica Sport Fishing Pier (just south) - Santa Monica CA

trash collected for 20 minutes

2.5 pounds

634 pounds total

Community Count Collection

Thank you to Arleen for coming out tonight! Find her on twitter at: ecogossip

Day 56

Santa Monica CA

trash collected for 20 minutes

2.6 pounds

395.8 pounds total

Hey wait a minute? Didn't I take a picture of this plastic cup on Day 155? Oh wait - I did.

Are you an athlete that loves the ocean and wants to race for a good cause?

Then look for the annual Nautica Triathlon that is held in Malibu every Sept. and sign up next year. Oceana was there this month and they raised over 6,000 dollars to support the work they do protecting Sea Turtles, and getting Offshore Drilling stopped to name just a couple of their vital campaigns. They are the largest non-profit dedicated solely to ocean conservation.

I was proud to be a 2010 Ocean Heroes Finalist this year.

Please sign Oceana's STOP THE DRILL petition here.

I've talked about the BaitTank before. My friend, and sometimes fellow beach cleaner, Mark Armen has invented a cigarette depository that will soon be up in the cities of Capitola and Santa Cruz. Want to help promote shark conservation, save fish and dispose of the "#1 form of marine debris found littering our local beaches and coastlines: cigarette butts?" Then check out the post about Mark's BaitTank on the SAVE OUR SHORES BLOG - INTO THE BLUE.
I found a blog recently that chronicles an artist Anke, living on the Baltic Coast of Germany as she collects plastic and other trash from her local beach to make outrageously beautiful art pieces with it. Her blog is called BEACHED ART, you've got to see her work.
Another person I have talked about a lot on here - and who has her own column to the left on my blog chronicling her cigarette butt collections called Our Daily Ocean - is my friend Danielle who lives near Wrightsville Beach in North Carolina.

Her actions got the attention of a local non-profit dedicated to sea turtles. They have a blog called the Lumina News. In their most recent post, they talk about the liter that they picked up from their beach this summer. 569.74 bags of trash! That is a lot of trash.

It is likely that each bag weighs roughly 10 pounds - so their total would be - 5,697.4 pounds OVER 2 TONS!

Check out LUMINA NEWS here.

Ginger from the Sea Turtle Project recently collected 1.7 pounds of trash in a 20 minute cleanup because she was inspired by Danielle, who was inspired by The Daily Ocean.

Got 20 minutes?

Harry in Maine writes The Flotsam Diaries. Sadly, he broke all of his collection records during his last beach cleanup.

He diligently records his findings on his blog - "A chronicle of human debris. Washed up, blown in, left behind."

The Daily Ocean asks people to write in with their findings on their own 20 minute beach cleanup no matter where they live in the world. Whether you live in the NE, SE, or on the West Coast - the findings are the same - plastics and other liter clogging the oceans.

So far with the help of people participating in the Community Count Collections and my own Daily Ocean cleanups we are over 1/2 A TON OF TRASH and counting.

But not only that - we are connecting an ocean community, spreading the word, taking action and making a difference.

So I ask you - if we are finding the same thing everywhere, then maybe we need everyone to make a difference?

Join us. To start - it only takes 20 minutes.