WINNING SHORT FILM FROM SUNDANCE

"IT STARTS WITH ME" - a short film by Destin Cretton

My friend Danielle of the blog, "It Starts With Me," was featured at the Sundance Film Festival as a winner of the Brita Filter For Good Contest. I am so inspired by watching her in this brief film. 

She came out onto the beach in Santa Monica with me over the summer. This film is about the cigarette butt cleanups that she started when she got home. So far she has collected way over 13,000 cigarette butts off of Wrightsville Beach, in NC. 

What strikes me most about the film, is that you never know who you are going to meet, connect with, what inspiration sparks from that chemistry, and then all of the wondrous outcomes that develop because of these chance encounters. 

I am so grateful that they included a brief bit in the film on The Daily Ocean. A special thank you to the film's director Destin Cretton for including me in his project. I hope you enjoy watching it as much as I did. Here is how to find Danielle, and how to find Mark. Enjoy.

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!

Day 82 - Dec. 13

life guard tower 26 - Ocean Park, Santa Monica CA

trash collected for 20 minutes

estimated number of pounds collected - 8.2

total number of pounds collected - 360.07
Garen helped me collect today. We got there and found a huge flock of sea gulls that I was able to get close to to photograph. I've included some of these shots at the end of this post.

Today was the first day it didn't rain in 2, 3 days. I lost count. We need the water desperately, but one thing that I find hard about Los Angeles when it rains, is the amount of crap that washes out of the city storm drains, and into the ocean. See below.
Everywhere we looked, the tide line was littered like this. It stretched down the beach in either direction. When I saw these piles of leaves, plastic trash, and other junk, I knew that it was going to be one of those days collecting that involved a lot of deep breaths.......
Recently, Surfrider included a blurb about cigarette butts, and their toxicity in the water. I had read a related article earlier this year, and had been looking for the same information elsewhere when I lost track of which magazine in our house I'd seen the fact. Well here it is, and thanks to Surfrider's ENewsletter "SOUP" for another interesting link.

"Cigarette butts are toxic to fish and should be labeled as toxic hazardous waste, U.S. researchers say. Scientists at San Diego State University say that a single cigarette butt can be enough to contaminate a liter of water and kill half of the fish swimming in it. "

here's the link to the whole article
Okay, so after 12 minutes Garen's bag was completely full. He actually had to sit down and watch me complete the last 8 on my own....

He also noticed that he wasn't as thorough as usual. He estimates that he grabbed about 80% of what he saw when usually we both grab what is there, and then move on. Not today, we were overwhelmed by the amount of trash needing to be collected, and left plenty behind for another time.
This is as far as we got from my starting point of life guard tower 26. Usually I go from this life guard tower and walk south to the next one, and then all the way back again. Today we made it about 40 yards from the first one, and as I said above, left about 20% of the trash we saw in that distance on the beach because it was too small to collect, or there was just way too much to grab in 20 minutes.

Garen and I estimated that there is about 120 yards between life guard towers, and that just measuring the 5 foot area of the tide line on the beach, there was approximately 30 pounds of trash to be collected between each set of towers today. All of this washed in from the ocean after the rain, it looked like.

There is always this much trash in the storm drain system. A good rain just concentrates it together for us to get a look at. Disturbing.
My friend Siel said that she call tell from this blog that I really like the Sea Gulls on the beach. She is right! Enjoy the pictures here and below if you like these birds too. I think they are beautiful, but most people find then a nuisance.

And here is Siel's blog, greenLAgirl, check it out if you've never seen it.

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 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 52 - Sept. 4

Lifeguard Station 26 - Ocean Park, Santa Monica CA

trash collected for 20 minutes

estimated pounds collected today - 2 bags - 1.7 recyclables/ 2.8 trash

estimated pounds collected to date - 280.6
There were a lot of people out on the beach when I was collecting today. I went a little bit early. It suites me better to be out there around sunset. Maybe I feel a self conscience collecting trash around so many people, or maybe I like the beach with less people on it? Probably a combination of both. It strikes me as a sad that I choose to drive an hour north to Zuma beach outside of Santa Monica Bay to go in the water, when this beach is 5 minutes from my house. I keep trying to convince myself to just go in the water here, it is so much warmer and closer, but I just can't bring myself too. Not after finding what I do day after day. Good waves here too for body surfing, my favorite, rats!
A sand toy that struck me as funny. An apple a day is a phrase that symbolizes health. Look at what the students at Santa Monica High School Team Marine are doing to promote health for nations that are a lot less fortunate than us:

http://www.vestergaard-frandsen.com/lifestraw.htm - Life Straw has developed a practical water purifier that is literally a straw that allows water to be filtered as you drink it.

Half of the world's poor suffer from waterborne disease, and nearly 6,000 people - mainly children - die from diseases contracted from unsafe drinking water every day.

Ridiculous. I should say that I have a Killer Whale squeeky toy that rides around with me on the dashboard of my car. I found it at Leo Carrillo Beach. I brought this beautiful creature home for my husband Garen to ride along with him as company. How could someone abandon such a cute critter, unless it washed in from sea to find a new home after a long bumby ride from who knows where down a storm drain, yuck.
Ahhhh...the daily single use plastic water bottle. I found 4 today.
In the same step. I found this shell, and this chunk of styrafoam at once. I rarely see whole shells at this beach. Unfortunately I see a lot of the other. Happy Labor Day weekend everyone.

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!

Day 49 - August 28

Life Guard Station 26, Ocean Park, Santa Monica CA

trash collected for 20 minutes

estimated trash collected today - 2 bags - 4.2/2.3 recyclables = 6.5

estimated trash collected to date - 266.5
There was the most unbelievable sunset today. I think it was from the forest fire that is raging through Angeles National Forest here in Los Angeles. I have added about twice as many pictures to my blog tonight. I got lucky taking photographs earlier, it is really hard to screw up shots of that amazingly beautiful sky. This blog could be labeled trash and sunsets, but I hope you'll bare with me, they are both in need of documentation.
There was a blood red sunset today, and then I found this in the sand. I debated whether I wanted to post this picture. I have found tampon applicators, but not the actual tampon before. It disturbs me not only to see this in the sand right after I had looked at the beautiful sky above, but to wonder why it was there. Had it floated in on the tide, and if so was there a lot of toilet waste that had been flushed into the Santa Monica Bay recently?
I've started to talk to Ben Kay at Santa Monica High School who is the leader of Team Marine, a club there devoted to ocean conservation and environmental activism. I hope that we can join forces. We were talking yesterday about the need for water bottle manufacturer's to attach the bottle tops to the bottle. Until, we both agreed, we get rid of the bottles all together. I think I may keep a count of how many tops I find, and keep them for this year. That could be persuasive to influence companies to change. I like thinking of small gestures that add up to have greater influence. I think I'll do this.
My least favorite thing that I have seen on a day out collecting was a sea gull who swallowed a lighter just like this right in front of me before I could get to it.
A mermaid.
The moon and clouds.
I was surprised when I found a leading article in the AP on the Yahoo site about the Pacific Trash Gyre, a swirling mass of trash and plastics twice the size of the continental United States. I've read articles that say it is twice the size of Texas, but that was true years ago, it has grown.

Click here to read more. I am glad to see that this topic is getting the buzz it needs.
The 25th Coastal Cleanup Day is coming on Set. 19 where thousands of people come out from both coasts to clean the beach. I'll be doing that, maybe with Heal The Bay. The day after will be a festival for the Day of Peace on the pier in Santa Monica hosted by Roots and Shoots, a foundation started by Jane Goodall, it is going to be an incredible weekend. The festival is completely free so join us.
California Coastkeeper Alliance. Check them out!
Waterkeeper Alliance. Check them out too!

Day 48 - August 26

Life Guard Station 26, Ocean Park, Santa Monica CA

trash collected for 20 minutes

estimated pounds of trash today - 2 bags, .7 of which was recyclables

estimated pounds of trash to date - 260.9
The Surfrider 25th Anniversary Meeting at Duke's in Malibu was awesome last night. Glen Hening who founded Surfrider gave a power point presentation on how it all began and brought us up to today. There was a great band and really good fish tacos. A raffle closed out the evening. Garen and I wanted to win the stand up paddle board, alas.
At the meeting they announced a bunch of campaigns that are really making a difference. One that I was interested in was the Teach and Test initiative (testing ocean water quality) that is going on with at Santa Monica High School. It is called Team Marine, I love it! I met a woman named Renee that will hopefully help Garen and I get involved. Click here to link to their site

Garen and I got to discussing ideas we have to form a non-profit out of The Daily Ocean one day. We want to base it on the theme that you can take huge environmental problems facing the ocean and on a daily basis, do one small action that will lead up to make a huge accumulative impact. Like the phase of the moon is barely visible day to day, until one evening you realize it is full again, these small changes add up to make a difference. He's a Marine Biologist so we're thinking water testing for bacteria to prove that beaches closer to a source of pollution are actually impacting people's health. It is an assumed idea based on very reasonable assumptions but the hard data to stand up in a court for example is not often there.

"When you're an activist it helps to be really pissed off," Glen Hening said of a colleague last night jokingly. At which point Garen laughed and patted my knee. Sure, I've got some of that and I think Glen is right, but I also think it helps to be steady and thoughtful.