Tuesday, August 3, 2010

Community Collection Day 40 - Aug. 2, 2010


COMMUNITY COLLECTION COUNT

life guard tower 26 - Santa Monica CA
trash collected for 20 minutes
8 people participated
5.3 pounds collected
326.8 pounds total
It has been a colder, cloudier summer here in southern California. Here's half of our gang tonight heading out to collect some trash off the local beach:
Garen (my husband) - Department Chair of Life Sciences for Santa Monica College and Marine Biologist
Tracy, CEO and founder of Recycled Bride
Anna - hot shot lawyer now embarking on 5 Gyres next trawl across the S. Atlantic
Heather - local acupuncturist & holistic practitioner fr Live Natural Live Well
First trash sighting -- a plastic water bottle top.....
Part of the problem of plastics entering the oceans is that marine life ingest it as food. Here is a well thought out description of that problem from the 5 Gyres website.

Anna Cummins and Marcus Eriksen live in Santa Monica. We are very proud to have them as part of our community as they shake up the world to bring global awareness to the disasterous problem of Plastic Pollution.
We found a buried plastic bag in the sand. It took a lot of digging to unearth it.
When we got it out, it made me wonder what else is buried here in the sand?

For one thing, plastic that breaks down into smaller bits that then becomes mixed into the sand is a leading cause of beach errosion. The plastic is lighter than the ground shells, rocks, and other sediment in the sand. Therefor it makes the sand lighter, which means that it is carried out by the sea water faster....learn more at ALGALITA MARINE RESEARCH

I learned this the other night at a party for our friend Emily Penn who is moving to Brasil to work for Pangea Explorations and go on the S. Atlantic leg of the next 5 Gyres expedition. She has only lived here for a short time, but she made a huge impact on our community.
Thank you Emily. We will miss you!
You always have a home away from home in Santa Monica.
Tracy found this fork in the sand and claimed it as hers to collect. Luckily there wasn't much trash to collect tonight because of the cloudy weather we have been having and the lower temperatures. The conclusion that can draw from this is clear:
LESS PEOPLE = LESS TRASH
Here is Emily Penn and her friend Camden Howitt from Sustainable Coasts in New Zealand that is here in California for the first time. Welcome Camden!



Thank you to everyone who came out last night. I think the last person that I have to mention is Denis. He is the creator of HIPPO WORKS for kids, "animals helping you to save the earth." Amazing work! Check it out!

Sorry that I didn't get a picture of you up here, but I really appreciate you coming to the beach to be a part of the Daily Ocean Community Count.

I ask local people who can join me at the beach, or folks who read The Daily Ocean who live elsewhere to do a Daily Ocean style beach cleanup and send me the results. I'll add them to our running tally of pounds collected and put up a post here to share your results. Just email me if you would like to contribute. Contact information and more information about the Community Count can be found on the home page of The Daily Ocean. Thank you!

Day 135 - July 29, 2010


life guard tower 26 - Ocean Park, Santa Monica CA
trash collected for 20 minutes
3.7 pounds
551.1 pounds total

In the video at the beginning of this post you will see that this is not the only water bottle that I found on the beach today.
So many sand toys get abandoned. Do I sound like a broken record? Does that phrase even make sense to the general public anymore?
Well here is someone who finds plastics on the beaches and then turns them into sculpture.


Rob from MERR inspired me when he sent me all of the fabulous videos of his kids collecting trash from Rehoboth Beach in DE. If you missed that post, here it is.


The PSA below is very well done courtesy of the Plastic Pollution Coalition. Check it out!


Buried in Plastic PSA Plastic Pollution Coalition from Dianna Cohen on Vimeo.