Community Count Back Log

Daryl collects here at Dockweiller Beach in the LA area for 2 years & counting!

4 days of Community Count Cleanups come from here - The Baltic Sea

Santa Barbara - two Community Counts come from here

First of all, I would like to thank all of the people who reached out with emails, and comments after reading about The Daily Ocean in the LA times last month. It was a thrill to read so many good wishes and kind words about this project. I've also had the chance to meet a few of you, and that is also a real treat.

This past month I was chained to my computer for most of the day finishing a project that has taken nearly four years. I completed the draft last Thurs. knowing full well that it doesn't stop there. But it does mean that I get a reprieve from the intensity of writing for many hours a day and now I am chained to my desk answering back-logged emails.

Actually, I am enjoying pouring over emails from people who have written in about what they have found on their walks, on their beaches. There are so many of you that I have to dedicate an entire post to your efforts. I'm really looking forward to compiling all of your hard work here. It inspires me to no end. I hope you find that these people have the same effect on you. Again, my sincerest thanks.

A LIST OF PLACES AND PEOPLE WHO WROTE IN TO SHARE THEIR FINDINGS:

1. Anke - The Baltic Sea, Germany

2. Ginger Taylor, Wrightsville Beach N.C.

3. Patricia - professor at SBCC, Santa Barbara

4. James - Long Beach CA

5. Rebecca, Santa Barbara CA

6. Arleen - Martha's Vineyard MA

7. Daryl - Dockweiller Beach LA, CA

8. Jaqueline - Makaha, Oahu

1. Anke - She collects rubbish from her beach on the Baltic Sea and creates beautiful art with it. She went above and beyond the Community Count call and submitted 4 days worth of beach cleanup information.

Day 1 - 9/18 3.9 pounds

Day 2 - 9/23 - 2.4 pounds

Day 3 - 9/24 - 1.4 pounds

Day 4 - 9/25 - 15 pounds

total 22.7 pounds

2. Ginger Taylor - Wrightsville Beach, N.C.

I have two collections to report about from her.

She walked for 20 minutes near beach access 33 and found 1.7 pounds. Here is her list of trash:

74 cigarette butts

7 bottle caps

5 straws

1 wiffle ball

1 mini New Hanover Wildcats basketball (the kind they throw out at the game)

1 unused large black garbage bag

1 walmart plastic bag

4 Styrofoam cups

1 netting (the kind that beach toys are packaged in)

2 zip lock bags

1 cigar tip

3 balloons

1 hat

1 plastic spoon

other bits and bobs

Her second collection took place in the woods: All things roll down hill, all drains lead to the ocean....

Today we picked up 14 lb. 11.4 oz. of trash in a little over an hour while we walked the dog and played with other dogs. Most of the trash came from behind Carlton Place apartments. It looks as though residents party up and throw their beer and cigarette butts over the fence into the woods. Another "dirty" area was the Hooker Rd. access to the forest. There we picked up many many plastic bottles and aluminum cans as well as two bags of something poopy---yuck yuck yuck!

Here is a list of our loot:

2 beer case boxes

14 plastic bottles

a pile of rusted survey flags (plastic flags)

5 glass bottles

16 aluminum cans

4 plastic cups

3 straws

1 styrofoam cup

5 glass bottles

2 dirty diapers

2 plastic bags of poop

5 plastic bags

lots of other bibs and bobs of plastic and styrofoam stuff.

3. Patricia is a professor at Santa Barbara Community College. She takes her students out every Sunday! That's right - every Sunday time depending on the tide. They have a FB page I can't see since I don't have a personal FB account. But you probably can!

Look up - Beach Angels on FB to see what they are up to.

I will be going up to the Santa Barbara area to collect with them, and another woman who contacted me from the area. Stay tuned for those results.

4. James - Long Beach already baught a scale to go out with, and he will report back to me when he has the chance to head to the beach.

5. Rebecca - Santa Barbara - collects trash when she walks her dog (I've learned that many people do this, yay!) I've pasted a few lines from her email here because it makes me smile. Especially the last line.

When out with Ruby the Jack Russell, I pick up litter for our 1 to 2 mile walks/6 days weekly. Plastic, glass, ciggy butts, dog poop, clothing, cardboard, paper, on and on.

I calculatee poundage in my head and multiply by the imaginary if 1,000 people in SB did what I do, we could keep______pounds per year from reaching the ocean.

Your pictures and precision make it much better but just so you know.

We are out here!

6. Arleen - Martha's Vineyard. She was one of the first people to follow The Daily Ocean on twitter. She also came out for a cleanup at the end of the summer when she was visiting her daughter who lives in Santa Monica. And recently she went to her own beach to see what she could find while also dragging out her kitchen scale. I love LOVE LOVE this photograph.

Arleen was bummed to find that her, "quiet Martha's Vineyard Squibnocket beach" was not very clean like she thought it would be. She found 3.6 pounds in 20 min.

Some of the items she collected were:

a buoy

cans

plastic

a slipper

some jeans

cups

wires

and balloon ribbon

Sounds very much like the beach in Santa Monica. See a trend?

*if you click on these images they enlarge.

7. Daryl emailed me from the LA area. She has been doing what I do with The Daily Ocean for over 2 years! Bravo! She cleans a stretch of beach from Marina Del Ray to Dockweiller Beach (notoriously dirty). Daryl said that the most frequently found item out there are plastic straws. Here's a way to cut back on straw liter. The next time you go to a restaurant and order a drink ask them to hold the straw. It will catch on. Your friends may ask you why with a funny look on your face. You can then explain, and even if only one person catches on to the hlod the straw habbit, that is one more person than before....

Daryl says that she finds all the usual suspects like:

condoms

syringes

plastic cigar tips

plastic cups

plastic bags (see a trend forming -- it begins with the letter p...)

plastic toys

styrofoam cups

plasitc forks

but also ....

dead birds

dead sea lions

and one time:

" I even found a live fullgrown chicken in a trashcan near Marina. Freaked me out!

Keep up the good work. The oceans need our help. We are drowning in our own waste."

8. Jaqueline - Makaha, Oahu and Mauna Lanilahi Beach Park

Here's a quote from what she finds on her daily walks along the stretch of road near her house in Makaha:

I now work on my daily walk on a stretch of road and most of that stuff consists of 7/11,McDonalds, plate lunch boxes and beer bottles flung out of the cars traveling on this road. "

And another quote from her beach collections:

"

I filled at least 6 large garbage bags with the following items, frequently seeing myself people eat plate lunches from styrofoam containers and just getting up where they sat leaving behind the plates, folks, cups, plastic bags, condiment containers, and straws. Mothers left their dirty disposable diapers right on the beach along with their children's juice containers with straws. These people would get up from a nice lunch or day at the beach, walk by the trash can and get into their cars."

The reason that I wanted to include all of these people's findings in one post is that we are collecting the same liter from all of our beaches. And we are all seeing the same behavior.

I saw the remains from a family that got up from the sand in Santa Monica and left all of their disposable plates, forks, cups, etc. right where they were sitting.

But here is the good trend that I thought would be apparent if I shared this in one post. We all care about the beaches where we live. We are all taking the same actions to protect the ocean that we live near. We are all making a difference. Join us?