East Coast -- West Coast Trash Talk

COMMUNITY COLLECTION DAY 39: JULY 25, 2010

Rob Rector of MERR - Marine Education Research and Rehabilitation - Institute in Delaware and I met because of Oceana's Ocean Hero Contest this year. We both loved being a part of it.

The Deepwater Horizon Oil Disaster (it's not just a "spill") happened during the contest. Many people felt devastated and helpless, (still do) but if they looked at Oceana's website they were directed to look at all kinds of ocean activism, most especially this year's winner IBRRC.

The International Bird Rescue Research Center are in the gulf right now helping oiled birds survive this tragedy. Here's a direct link to what they are doing. Their efforts are tremendous.

After the Ocean Hero Award Rob and I decided to try to find ways to work together. Here's one way that we came up with. We did a joint beach cleanup for the Community Collection Count part of my blog. Want to contribute? Leave a comment and I'll catch you up on what to do. It's pretty simple. You just do a Daily Ocean style cleanup near you, or while on vacation and send me your findings. Below are the results from our:

EAST COAST -- WEST COAST TRASH TALK (Rob aptly named it)

Last Sunday night, on our respective east coast and west coast beaches, at sunset we went out for about 20 minutes to see what we could find. Below is one of the many cool videos he sent me to introduce Nate and Maya - his ridiculously cute, and smart kids -

the Ocean Heroes of the night.

"The stats- Collectors: Maya (6) and Nate (4)

Time: 8:10-8:35

Area: 2 blocks on Rehoboth Beach DE

Amount collected: 6.5 pounds

Total: 321.5

Fun had: immeasurable" - Rob Rector, MERR

The picture above could be of the beach down the street from me. An orange peel and a plastic bottle top-twisty-thingy are everyday finds in California as well.

I found a plastic water bottle, and lots of gulls too. See my collection results for the day.

Ahh..chap stick. For me it was one of those plastic disposable objects that had infiltrated my life so seamlessly until I became aware of single use disposable plastics. Now I see them...and oh so many other objects like it.

Thank you to Nate, Maya and Rob for participating in cleaning up our beaches, but just as importantly for raising awareness about the trash -- mostly plastic and single use -- that is flooding the oceans. It's like the chap stick, once you see it, you see it everywhere.

Even if you don't live by the coast, all "drains" lead to the ocean eventually. In the meantime, if you look around your neighborhood, do you see plastic water bottles, cigarette butts, and plastic bags littering your streets? If so, want to do something about it?

Biggest object: A beach chair (I did not include this with the weight, though,as I left it in the trash there. No room on my bike).

They didn't even get to finish their Cherry Coke!

Thank you Rob for all the short videos you took of Nate and Maya. It really feels like we are all right there with you. I hope that the people who are reading this post enjoy them as much as I do!

Beverly's Palm Beach Cleanup - Part 1

My friend Beverly has done it again! For those of you who haven't read a Beverly Beach Cleanup post here on The Daily Ocean, let me catch you up quickly. She contacted me through this blog last year wanting to get involved with the Community Collection Count cleanup invitation that I put out to readers.

If you go to, or live by a beach, you can do a Daily Ocean style cleanup. Collect for 20 minutes, take some pictures of the beach and the trash, write a few words, and send it to me to post here on my blog. I will add the pounds of trash you collected to my running tally, and highlight your cleanup.

Beverly has done half a dozen at least at this point. What a cool thing that she has been out there so much that I have lost track of just how many times I have received her well written, beautifully photographed accounts of her beach cleanup adventures. She inspires me, I hope she inspires you too! As always, thank you Beverly. Her experience on the Palm Beach, FL beaches follows below.

Community Collection Count - Beverly

Palm Beach Florida

Day 18 & 19

10.43 pounds

142.93 total pounds

The Daily Ocean – Florida Week 2 – Loggerhead Park, Town of Palm Beach Municipal Beach, and Marriott’s Oceana Palms Beach Cleanup

Palm Beach County

I’d first like to thank Todd of Palm Beach County Surfrider for his generous advice and directions to local beaches – and for the Google map he created with his favorites! The first few days in Palm Beach County I visited a Turtle Hospital, walked along a public beach in one of the wealthiest towns in America, and went to a beach cleanup at my own hotel! It was a great introduction to the variety of beaches in Palm Beach County.

1/25/10
Loggerhead Park (Juno Beach) 6 lb.s 4.5 oz. Collected
Loggerhead Park is behind the Loggerhead Marine Life Center which houses a sea turtle hospital for injured turtles being nursed back to health. This week the hospital is full as many turtles, sensitive to the recent cold, have required care.

There had been some storms earlier that day, but the weather cleared as I walked onto the beach. This is a guarded beach. I found many different kinds of plastic along the beach, bottle caps, pieces of plastic, Styrofoam. But it’s a great walk and the sand felt very soft between my toes.

1/26/10
Town of Palm Beach Municipal Beach (Palm Beach) 3 lbs. 9.8 oz. Collected
This beautiful beach is just north of Worth Avenue, with metered parking or two hour free parking nearby. It’s a guarded beach with the greatest variety of gulls I’ve seen just about anywhere. Walking along the beach looking out at the water, in the middle of great natural beauty it’s a treat to know that just blocks away shops are filled with manmade treasures – jewels, fashion, and cuisine. Which would you choose? In Palm Beach you can have both.

Marriott’s Oceana Palms Beach Cleanup (Singer Island) --- Trash collected but not weighed
I was surprised to see that Marriott’s Oceana Palms – where I’m staying – has a weekly beach cleanup as part of their activities. I had to go, and helped clean the beach with a staff member. They are building the program and it will be great to see more guests join over the next few months. A sister location on the same beach, Ocean Pointe, now gets a larger crowd for their weekly cleanup, and is great for parents teaching their children to ‘think green’. Beach clean ups were suggested by Marriott Corporate and we applaud them – it’s easy to include a few minutes of beach cleanup into a day as a thank you for vacationing on beautiful beaches!

Beverly's Beach Clean Up - Day 5

This is the last post of one of my reader's, Beverly, who took me up on the Community Count Challenge and spent most of her beautiful Newport, R.I. vacation picking up trash from the beaches she researched by contacting the Rhode Island Chapter of Surfrider.

Beverly is an example of someone who has been really inspired, and her efforts go above and beyond what I could have hoped someone to do.

But you can contribute to the Community Count too by:

1. going to your local beach and collecting trash for 20 minutes.

2. take pictures of the trash and what you see along the way.

3. weigh the trash

4. send me the pictures, how much you collected, and your thoughts and I will post them on The Daily Ocean.

You can also come to the beach in Santa Monica if you are a local and help me collect.

I post the time I am going out on the day and you can see this by following me on Twitter, http://twitter.com/thedailyocean , or looking on my blog towards the upper right of my home page for the information. You can come once, or as much as you like.

The Community Count has:

COMMUNITY COLLECTION -

107.9 POUNDS COLLECTED IN 8 DAYS

357 DAYS TO GO

Again, thank you so much Beverly! You have inspired me to keep going with The Daily Ocean

and have been such a huge supporter. I really appreciate it.

Third Beach (Middletown) October 6: 2.8 lbs. (Rusty Pipe: 1 lbs.) collected

The last beach on my list. Third Beach is one of several beaches on the Sakonnet River in between the Norman Bird Sanctuary and the Sachuest Point National Wildlife Refuge, and on this sunny afternoon it’s a boater’s beach. There are boats moored in the harbor, and kayakers out on the water.

I watch a gull take a clam shell from the water and hold it in his mouth, moving around the shore and out into the water. I’ve never seen that before. The gull’s not in a hurry and proudly paddles by the other gulls, his prize in his mouth.

I walk along picking up pieces of plastic, some plastic bottles and pieces of cans. Not many child’s toys here. This side is for boating, in and out. It’s a little rocky at mid-tide; hard to sit or play. I see a rusty pipe and put it in my bag.

I finish picking up a few more pieces of plastic, and then reach down for what I think is Styrofoam but turns out to be shattered clam shell. That’s happened at each beach, and I leave the shell pieces on the sand. I weigh my final bag of trash and it’s 2.8 lbs. including the rusty pipe which is 1 lb.

Driving away I head up to the Sachuest Point National Wildlife Refuge to see what’s there. It’s a drive through tall sea grass and up a hill – a beautiful view overlooking Third Beach on one side, and Second Beach and Sachuest Beach on the other, with the pavilions of Atlantic and Easton’s Beaches further in the distance. A great end to my beach cleanup project – the chance to see some of the beaches I’ve visited from a distance.

Beach Cleanup Impressions:

My strongest impression from the beach cleanup project was plastic – plastic everywhere. Children’s toys, sandals, pieces of many things, bags, parts of cups, plates and containers. It’s easy to forget something at the beach – it’s in the sand, the wind blows something away, you’re distracted. It’s hard to change behavior and hard to keep beaches clean without taking away the joy of the beach. But being careful about what you bring and what you leave help keep any special place clean for all.

Second Beach in Middletown and Gooseberry Beach in Little Compton made me think about dogs at the beach. It’s great to see owners and dogs at the beach – great for the owners, great for the dogs. But doesn’t this affect the beach? I’d like to learn more, and I’m sure that dog owners would too.

Perhaps one message from this cleanup project is to have respect for the beach the way you have respect for anything you love. Maybe that means coming to the beach with items in cloth bags, and reusable containers for drinks and food, not throw away. Curbing your dog when you’re at the beach. Small changes that add up to cleaner beaches and cleaner water. I’m glad for groups like SurfRider and Save The Bay that remind us beaches and water are fragile systems that need our support and care.

Beach Cleanup on Future Vacations:

I enjoyed this project from beginning to end – meeting Sara and responding to her suggestions, working with SurfRider Rhode Island, visiting all the beaches, experiencing them from a trash collection point of view. The thank yous from other beachgoers were very encouraging. I’ll plan to do the same project when I’m in Florida in January, and again on Hilton Head in April – there are SurfRider chapters where I’ll be going. I invite other vacationers to do the same when they travel to beaches they love. I know that Sara will be glad to post your pictures and your thoughts.

Beverly's Beach Cleanup, Day 4

As I have posted about earlier, a reader of The Daily Ocean Blog, Beverly, took me up on my invitation to collect trash at a beach near her and contribute to my Community Collection Count.

The Community Collection Count works like this.

- find a beach near you

- take a walk for 20 min. and collect trash

- take pictures, weigh your trash and send my your info.

- I'll post your findings here on The Daily Ocean.

Beverly spent many days during her last vacation doing this, here is Day four of her beach cleanup adventures. Again, thank you Beverly!

Goosewing Beach (Little Compton) October 5: 1 lbs. 4 oz. collected

I have a little trouble getting to Goosewing Beach, which is a preserve adjacent to South Shore Beach, separated by a stream that’s not passable at high tide. From the map it looks like there’s a road in to the beach but that turns out to be private property. An electronic gate confirms that.

So, I drive on to Padanarum Village and return to Goosewing Beach at low tide when it’s easy to walk across to the beach.

Goosewing Beach is extremely clean – I see the plus side of limited access to a beach. Few gulls, and very little trash. I find a few things – plastic pieces, fishing line, half a fishing rod. I enjoy walking for a few minutes, actually straining to find trash. The sun feels great and the water is beautiful – just rocks and seaweed on the wet sand. In the end I’ve got only 1 lbs. 4 oz. gathered from my 20 minute walk.

South Shore Beach (Little Compton) October 5: 3 lbs. collected

On Monday I head out to Little Compton – out from Newport, through Middletown and Portsmouth, over the bridge, through Tiverton and on to Little Compton. South Shore Beach is the Town Beach for Little Compton, houses and and fishing cottages clustered near the beach. It’s high tide and the waves break hard on this soft sandy beach. The sky is clear and you can see Westport, Massachusetts in the distance.

The gulls are loud as I pick up trash. These beaches are very quiet in off season but today some families are there, children run in the sun and couples drive by to take a walk on the beach. Beach lovers enjoying Monday morning in October. Life is pretty good when you can start the week with a walk on the beach.

I’m finding the usual plastic, a plastic sandal, a plastic (empty) bottle of Johnny Walker Red. In the end I’ve collected 3 lbs. No garbage cans here – but the port-a-potty does have hand sanitizer (thank you , Little Compton). I throw my bag of trash in the back of my car and drive away.

Day 62 - Sept. 23

Lifeguard Tower 26 - Ocean Park, Santa Monica CA

trash collected for 20 min.

estimated pounds of trash collected today - 1.5

estimated pounds of trash collected to date - 313.4
Is it a balloon, a jelly fish, or a creature from the deep? I think you know the answer....

My local paper is amazing, they run stories about beach closures on the front page.

From the Santa Monica Daily Press today : (they are running a story on The Daily Ocean in their weekend edition. Check their website to read it, they are an online paper too!)

BEACH CLOSURE
WILL ROGERS STATE BEACH Foul smell causes closure The Los Angeles County Department of Public Health has posted warning signs advising swimmers and surfers to avoid the ocean for a half-mile north and a half-mile south of the storm drain located at Will Rogers State Beach, near Pacific Palisades....more

essay continued from Day 60 post:

But I do this for a few reasons. I feel better when I collect the trash, making it unavailable for marine life to get sick from. I find it enormously satisfying when I chase a gull away from eating a plastic bottle cap.
Sometimes I feel worse after collecting. If the sand is littered with trash that day, usually on Sunday nights, then I am depressed because sometimes I collect over five pounds in twenty minutes. Remember, the stuff I am collecting weighs ounces; cigarette butts aren’t heavy.

Here’s why I keep doing it though. This is my hope. I hope that people see what I am doing physically, or online and it inspires them to do the same. I hope that steady shifts in awareness sink in that cause people to change. And that all of this effort creates a slow and steady climax to the tipping point where people feel inspired to take action around whatever environmental issue they feel passionate about and that this passion becomes contagious.

Day 61 - Sept. 22

Lifeguard Tower 26 - Ocean Park, Santa Monica CA

trash collected for 20 minutes

estimated pounds collected today - 2

total pounds collected to date - 311.9
Today was a wonderful, and strange day to be out here. Santa Monica Daily Press came out to photograph me for the weekend edition of their paper. They are an online paper, so if you want to check on Sat. and see the article, click here.

I think I forgot to take as many pictures, or pick up as much trash, but I am very excited they are interested in The Daily Ocean. Thank you SMDP!
I wrote an OP-ED piece for the LA Times, they didn't want to run it, but I still like it. I'll include it in this post starting below:

As We Say Goodbye to Summer How Are We Leaving Our Beaches?

Who can imagine summertime without going to the beach? Even if you don’t live on the coast, just the thought of a beach probably brings to mind pictures of summer. For millions of people the time they spend at the ocean defines the season. Many of us have early memories of being a child there, discovering waves, chasing sea gulls, and building sand castles.

September 20th was the last official day of summer. Over the past weekend thousands of us probably headed out to the beach to enjoy the final moments before fall arrived. Some of us may have participated in “Coastal Cleanup Day” last Saturday sponsored in part by Heal the Bay, and The Ocean Conservation. “Coastal Cleanup Day” is a an initiative to raise awareness about issues of Ocean Conservation, like the huge problem of Marine Debris, by inviting people to participate in a nation-wide beach cleanup.

You may have noticed that we are literally trashing the beaches. Marine Debris is one of the largest problems affecting the health of the ocean. You may have also heard about the North Pacific Trash Gyre, an island of floating trash swirling in the middle of the Northern Pacific that is now twice the size of the continental United States.

How does all this trash end up in the ocean? Storm drains from urban coastal areas lead straight into the water. Without grates over most openings to catch the larger pieces of trash, all the litter that lands on the street gets swept into the sea. And that’s not all. Motor oil, dog waste, pesticides and fertilizers end up in there as well. This is a design that has always concerned me, and strikes me as particularly insane.

But storm drains aren’t the only way these items are getting to into the water. We leave a lot of the same items behind right where we were, on the sand. Recently I saw a California Gull swallow a Bic lighter whole. I was just feet away, and unable to stop it.

As we say goodbye to the end of summer I’d like to ask how are we going to leave our beaches? I am not naturally optimistic. But even though that is often how I feel I think the real question on my mind is that, if you know what is going on, and have informed yourself of even a miniscule amount of the ecological research available, how can you not do something?

I chose to start a one-person beach cleanup as a way to begin. I head to my local beach and for twenty minutes at a time, pick up trash off the sand. It started as a way to protect my own mental health, and has developed into a blog called The Daily Ocean as a tool to raise awareness.

If the same trash appears daily why do I return? Am I really stopping the trash from getting in the water or littering the beach? No, probably not. Let me explain, the trash I take away will only be back the next day. Basically the same stuff will return, and when I say the same stuff, I mean exactly the same stuff. Cigarette butts, plastic water bottles, band-aids, straws, food wrappers, tampons, sanitary napkins, condoms, bottle tops, and the occasional discarded flip flop are the most frequent items I find. And I find them day after day.........

(continued on Day 61 results post)

Teresa of Green Bag Lady, has contacted me and will be sending me bags to use for cleaning the beach, one for my neighbor who gives me single use plastic bags to collect in now, and a bunch for an event I am co-hosting with green LA girl ( http://greenlagirl.com/bbc/ ) more about the event in the next post.

She lives in Tenn. and has started a project/blog that gives reusable, beautiful, sown fabric bags away to people if they promise to use them instead of paper or plastic.
So far she has given away 6484 bags to people around the world. So cool!!

Thanks Teresa, click here for a link to her site.

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 55 - Sept 8

Lifeguard Station 26 - Ocean Park, Santa Monica CA

trash collected for 20 minutes

estimated trash collected today - 3 bags- 1.8/2.4 of trash .6 recyclables = 4.8

estimated trash collected to date - 292.8

The water bottle for Day 54. I was talking to someone in the parking lot tonight who asked me what I was weighing. I explained, trash, and we got to talking. He is a surfer from Nepal who moved here 14 years ago. He was telling me that he grew up without a lot of material things because he is from a poor country. Therefor there was hardly any waste. For example, to get another soda you took your glass bottle in to be refilled. Two great ideas, glass bottles, and refilling them. But they weren't trying to be green, this is conservation out of necessity. I have a feeling I am collecting trash that stems from privilege.
I thought it was a shame that someone left this tiny, stylish shoe. I should have put my foot next to it for purposes of scale. Well let me just tell you, it's for a two year old. Which brings up something I think about a lot.

Why do people leave trash or their belongings behind on the beach?

I have four reasons and one X factor.

1. People are lazy. They think someone else will do it for them.

2. People really do not think about it. For whatever reason, environmental education has not reached, or made an impact on them. They are lacking in awareness to the point that it rarely, if ever, occurs to them that there is a connection between their daily choices and the rest of the world.

3. People have reached a state I refer to as beach bliss. Beach Bliss is the sense that you are in another world on the beach, one that makes you happy and forgetful. Therefor you act in ways here you wouldn't in your own life because you are essentially having such a great time at the beach. Example, they're probably not leaving empty bottles all over their front lawn as they come into the house from work, but they're not in that mindset here. So as they float away at the end of the day, they forget to act responsibly. A stretch at best, but more optimistic.

4. Beach Fatigue. Similar to the reason above, except you have stayed too long and the sun and waves have zapped you energy until it is all you can do to make it back to your car with most of your stuff. my friend Brigid came up with this after hearing my Beach Bliss theory.

X factor - sea gulls. They tear things away from blankets while their unsuspecting owners are away in the water, or dive for "snacks" in the open trash cans.

Open trash cans--something to tackle in a future post. Hint, open trash cans and open storm drains have something in common.

Rubin, the Lifeguard at station 26 tonight, (who is also responsible for coming up with the above X factor) believes that it is mostly reason 1 & 2. And the grossest thing, in his opinion, is when he sees dirty diapers on the beach. Yuck.

Many people talked to me today on the beach. Rubin offered me gloves, a few others said thank you. Which reminds me, Siel of Green LA Girl and I are doing a joint beach cleanup on Oct. 25th. Come join us! There will be drinks, snacks, like minded folks, bloggers and readers and ocean lovers. We're joining forces for a night, come along.

SO MARK YOUR CALENDARS AND SAVE THE DATE OCT. 25TH BEACH CLEANUP WITH ME AND SIEL! WOO-HOO!