Day 92 - Jan 24

MY TALLY

life guard tower 26 - Ocean Park, Santa Monica CA

trash collected for 20 minutes

pounds of trash collected today - 3.6 (due to a very soggy diaper)

pounds of trash collected to date - 386.4

COMMUNITY COLLECTION COUNT

Nancy - Day 14 of 365

trash collected for 20 minutes

pounds she collected today - 1.2

total pounds collected to date - 120.2

I am a big, big fan of Dr. Carl Safina who founded the Blue Ocean Institute. He was in the LA Times Op-Ed section recently covering the Obama Administrations decision to follow in the footsteps of failed Bush policy, therefor not taking the necessary steps to revitalize the Pacific Northwest Salmon Stocks:

"The likeliest outcome of a salmon strategy based on just avoiding extinction will be extinction -- and not only of salmon."

- Dr. Carl Safina, "Save the Salmon and Us" - LA Times - Jan. 24th, 2010

Find the entire article here.
"Where's Waldo?" Remember those books? I have no idea if they are still around, or if they remain popular, but that book title came to mind when I saw this transparent, barely visible piece of plastic that had been run over by a Life Guard SUV on the beach.

Plastic, even when nearly invisible, is still dangerous for our oceans. Here is an update from the Sargasso Sea found on Anna Cummins and Marcus Eriksen's blog on their 5 Gyres website.

Finding yet another good article in Surfrider's Online ENewsletter Soup, I wanted to pass it along here. When I picture Japan I don't picture seeing the beaches that were described in this article:

"For two months during the summer the beach is a pigsty. Fast food wrappers, empty beer and soft drink cans, dog turds, broken glass, rotting fruit, a million plastic bags and a billion cigarette butts. The smell of decay makes one want to dry retch.

It is futile trying to escape the crud by getting into the water — it feels like an oil slick. And faeces floats everywhere."

I share this to illustrate the point that we face a global pandemic of ocean pollution, that left unaddressed will not only make it impossible for marine life to exist, but makes it impossible for us to thrive as well.

The rest of the article can be found here.

A pride of lions laying in the sand.

A used diaper leaching into the beach sand that surrounds it.

Luckily, my walk ended on a high note. I looked up from my diaper find, to witness a Pacific Sunset in winter. The world is beautiful.