Day 137 - August 10th, 2010

life guard tower 26 - Santa Monica CA

trash collected for 20 minutes

3 pounds

559.8 pounds total

5 Gyres is exploring the world's oceans for Plastic Pollution. They have research expeditions planned to take water samples from every oceanic gyre (and there are 5) this year and into next.

My husband Garen and I will hopefully be going on the South Pacific crossing. He is a marine biologist who is planning to study the effects of Plastic Pollution on plankton.

Here is a great article on Mother Nature Network that details their recent Indian Ocean Gyre crossing. And guess what? There's lots of plastic there....

The comments at the end are misleading though, in my opinion, although their enthusiasm and good intentions are evident. You can't clean up the gyres, but you can stop your own plastic consumption because it starts with us.

Here's what Marcus Eriksen - co-founder of 5 Gyres with his wife Anna Cummins - thinks about reducing the plastic in the gyres:

"These gyres are almost impossible to clean out because they do not form a solid base of trash. Eriksen also suggests cleaning up beaches as quickly as possible to prevent trash from entering or returning to the water. Another solution — collective reduction in individual plastic consumption — would also help create cleaner bodies of water." - Mother Nature Network

Mark Armen of Gulpable has started a new project, The Bait Tank. Want to see the best and most creative way to clean up cigarette butts from our beaches? Check it out!
My friend Danielle from the "It Starts With Me," blog got inspired by her trip to CA. Her impression of our beaches was that they were pretty cigarette free. I find butts every time I am out there, but I guess it is all relative because down in North Carolina, she finds HUNDREDS!! Looks like Danielle and The Bait Tank need to link up huh?!

I'm on it.

Here's Danielle's post about her cigarette butt beach cleanup,

and she called it Daily Ocean Day 1, I'm honored!

"One Mom (that's "me") and three kids picked up

346 cigarette butts

off of Wrightsville Beach, NC in 20 minutes."

A huge contributor to the Community Collection Count is my friend Beverly. She collected at a Rhode Island beach last year as part of one of the many vacation Community Collections that she did for The Daily Ocean.

Goosewing Beach was awarded one of the USA's cleanest beaches by CNN. YAY! I love good news. Look at what she found there last year.

Thanks for the update Beverly. I love how the Community Collection brings beaches and people together. Want to join? Leave me a comment or email thedailyocean@yahoo.com