Day 134 - July 25, 2010

life guard tower 26 - Ocean Park, Santa Monica CA

trash collected for 20 minutes

4.8 pounds

547.4 pounds total

We really need to get some lids for the trash cans here in Santa Monica.

I picked all of this up, but how long did it take for the gulls to drag it back out?

There is a blog called Responsible Plastic that I would like to mention. It is written by David Mc Kay as, "an attempt to make sense out of the plastic in my life." His motto - "Nobody said it was easy..." In his latest post he asks himself just how far he is willing to go to get plastic out of his life?

Thank you David for asking yourself these hard questions, which in turn asks us to think about it too.

Here is a link to Team Marine of Santa Monica High School's Youtube channel. With over 20 environmental videos it is really worth checking out.

I'm getting psyched up to meet next year's new members, and see some familiar faces from 09-10, but I will really miss the crew that is off to college who are about to take the world by storm...one campus at a time! Good luck guys!!

This looks like an underwhelming piece of trash left on the beach. It's not even made from plastic! Shocker. Here's why I am including it in today's post:

I was collecting some trash around the people who were still on the beach, which always makes me feel slightly uncomfortable, but I just carry on. Anyway...I noticed the woman sitting behind this receipt on a towel, waiting for her husband to get out of the water, and perhaps wondering what the hell I was doing? Sometimes this happens...people will stare at me until I look up, then they turn away, or often say thank you.

So, I was hoping that she would pick up the trash in front of her when she left. I didn't want to bend down at her toes for her, I thought I'd give her a chance to clean it up herself since I was sure she had seen what I was up to.

But she didn't. This is not to shame her. Maybe she thought that I would get it, which I did. Maybe she didn't see it. I think that most people are used to a certain amount of trash on the beach. We've become apathetic to it. But seeing her leave the crumpled receipt in the sand made me think of a very important question, "If not me, who?"

If I leave the responsibility to the next person, who is to say they won't do the same?

If I want to save the ocean from trash -- mostly plastic -- then perhaps it is up to me?

If not me, then who?
Not Arrowhead. You may think I am being too hard on them for calling them out on their "Green-Washing" campaign, but am I? I don't think so. Especially after I watched TAPPED THE MOVIE and FLOW.

Day 59 - Sept 18

THE STUDENTS FROM THE HEAL THE BAY/SURFRIDER CLUB AT SANTA MONICA HIGH SCHOOL STAGED A BAN THE PLASTIC BAG MARCH THROUGH SANTA MONICA TODAY. FIRST STOP WAS CITY HALL. CLICK HERE FOR PHOTOS
Lifeguard Tower 26 - Ocean Park, Santa Monica, CA

trash collected for 20 minutes

estimated pounds of trash collected - 1.3/.8 NO RECYCLABLES (Garen helped today, thanks!)

estimated pounds of trash to date - 304.1
Tomorrow is COASTAL CLEANUP DAY. Thousands of people will clean beaches and urban riverways leading to the ocean on both coasts and Hawaii. Will you join us? I am looking forward to seeing what it feels like to be with hundreds of people on my local city beaches between 9 - 12 on Sat. Sept. 19th sponsored by Heal the Bay.
I was recently contacted by Beverly, a reader of The Daily Ocean. This project has inspired her to do her own version when she goes on vacation to Rhode Island in a few weeks.

She has already called the local Surfrider chapter and composed a list of 6 different beaches to visit. She wants to see how much trash she finds on each kind of beach with varying numbers of beach goers. Beverly will share her findings with me and I will post them here as

THE FIRST PERSON TO TAKE ME UP ON THE COMMUNITY COUNT CHALLENGE.

You can do what Beverly is doing, and send me your photos, weight of trash collected and I will post it here. Thanks Beverly!! Her new website about saving the places you love will go live in a few weeks and I will mention it here with a link. Awesome!!
Our beach as ashtray. Ugh.
ARROWHEAD - I've been reading an article about FIJI water in the October issue of Mother Jones. A reader pointed it out to me and I have to say reading that, and watching the documentary FLOW has brought the issues of who is controlling the world's fresh water and the dangers coming from that to my attention. A main contributor to the dangers are bottled water companies and the environmental damage they cause by adding to the plastic garbage floating in our oceans after people throw their plastic water bottles away, the petroleum they use in making the bottles creating more carbon emissions that cause global warming and the human suffering caused by the companies diverting local water sources away from its people as it pumps their water out from under them causing drought and disease.

An excerpt from this article about Arrowhead - (owned by the Nestle company)

"Nestle is seeking a permit to pipe 65 million gallons a year from a spring in rural Colorado. When critics raised concerns about the effect of climate change on local water supplies, Nestle said it was "illogical" to base decisions on changes "many years in the future."

- HMMM the future is now.

Day 56 - Sept. 13, 2009

Lifeguard Tower 26, Ocean Park, Santa Monica CA

trash collected for 20 min. - 3.6 trash/ .6 recyclables

estimated pounds collected today - 4.2

estimated pounds collected to date - 297

I forgot my camera today so I found this picture from a past collection day and posted it above because the sunset looked similar tonight.

This has been an off week for me in terms of days out collecting and I can feel it. I had commitments on Wed. and Thurs. night around sunset. Then I got the flu and today was the first day back to the beach.

I gave my plastic water bottles that you can redeem for money to a man on the beach who was collecting them to recycle and make a little extra, and I'm sure necessary, cash. After he asked me if I worked for the city and I said no, he told me I was a good citizen for picking up the trash. I told him it helped me feel less depressed. I'm not sure her understood me.

Yesterday a scary report about staff germs being in the water in Washington State came out. Here is one source from USA TODAY and the other from Yahoo.

"The germ causes nasty skin infections as well as pneumonia and other life-threatening problems. It spreads mostly through human contact. Little is known about environmental sources that also may harbor the germ."

It was found in 7 beach sand samples found around Puget Sound.

But like Garen said earlier today after watching the documentary FLOW, "It is all about solutions." To which I'll add, or what is the f@#$^& point.

Day 54 - Sept. 6

Lifeguard Station 26, Ocean Park, Santa Monica CA

trash collected for 20 minutes

estimated lbs. of trash collected to day - 2 bags - 5.2 trash/ 2.2 recyclables

estimated lbs. of trash collected to date - 288 pounds
This picture doesn't capture the extent of the trash I saw at the beach tonight, but it tries. I think that my pictures aren't very good this post. Two reasons; I was talking to my friend Brigid as I went, and two, I kept getting distracted because tonight may have been the filthiest I've seen it. If there is going to be one day of the year that the beach gets really trashed, besides July 4th, then the middle day of a long Labor Day weekend is it. I collected just under 2 pounds every five minutes.
Today's single use plastic water bottle. If you go to the Tapped movie website and click on the tab that says "The Issues" you'll get a brief education about BPA or Bisphenol A. It is the building block chemical of hard plastics and it is not good for us. Take a minute and read up if you are interested.

I also ordered the documentary FLOW today online. Here is the link, click here.
Can I resist the obvious song quote from the great Jimi Hendrix, "And so castles made of sand, fall into the sea, eventually." Guess not.
"40 % of all bottled water is drawn from municipal sources." - Tapped the Movie

Day 50 - Aug 29

Life Guard Station 26, Ocean, Park Santa Monica CA

trash collected for 20 min.

estimated pounds collected today - 2 bags of trash 2.5/3.3-1 bag of recyclables .5-tops - .1= 6.4

estimated pounds collected to date - 272.9
Last week at work Garen was shown a documentary called FLOW.

"Salina, (the director), builds a case against the growing privatization of the world's dwindling fresh water supply with an unflinching focus on politics, pollution, human rights, and the emergence of a domineering world water cartel."
This was my close call of the day. Almost picking up someone's used panty liner with my bare hands. Thankfully I paused and got out a tissue to pick it up without touching it. The funny, (or very gross), thing is, is that the panty liner had already washed "clean" into the water.
Garen found another blog for me to tell you about, it is called Stop Nestle Waters. org there is a trailer on this blog for another film called Tapped. Please take a couple of minutes to watch it if you are interested in the rising debate against bottled water.
Garen came out to help today. I walk slower, and honestly get a little lazy, when he is there to help. I let him pick up the slack. He also says that he doesn't belong in the community count because well, he's my husband. Somehow that made sense to me, even if it isn't very scientific. Anyway, this is what the two of us collected in 20 minutes. And since I am more apt to let him bend down to unearth the cigarette butts when we are together, maybe it actually isn't that much more than I would get on my own. Yesterday, for example, I collected 6.5 pounds by myself. Basically he did everything today. Thanks Garen!