Day 140 - August 17, 2010

life guard tower 26 - Ocean Park, Santa Monica CA

trash collected for 20 minutes

5.1 pounds

567.6 pounds total

"Green" Street plastic water bottle?

My friend Danielle has completed Day 3 of her Daily Ocean collection of cigarette butts and other trash in North Carolina. IT STARTS WITH ME - check it out!

409 CIGARETTE BUTTS COLLECTED IN 20 MINUTES (OMG!!)

952 TOTAL

This was about to be a sea gull snack. But I got it instead...phew!

Another amazing blog was brought to my attention this week when it's creator left me a comment on a Daily Ocean post. Harry lives in Southern Maine and has been chronicling the trash that he finds on his east coast beaches.

The Flotsam Diaries

"Amazing that some of the sunrises I capture on my beach become the sunset on yours."

- Harry

Later on in this post you will see a message from a woman in FL doing a similar collection and chronicling it. Let's start a beach cleanup revolution?!? YOU WITH ME :D

Ahhh...plastic, plastic, plastic. Not a day goes by out here without finding some of this.

Here's a cool group of folks called, "Coastal Footprint." They are traveling 10,000 miles n 2010 to,

"Coastal Footprint is a non-profit organization. Our mission is to further scientific knowledge concerning the transport of micro-plastic debris in oceanic waters, prevent plastic from reaching the ocean, and remove anthropogenic debris from coastal areas."

Good luck guys! See their journey at COASTALFOOTPRINT.ORG

I love sea gulls. They are so well dressed! Look how beautiful this bird looks in the sand.

As I logged onto YAHOO today, my friend and fellow LA blogger, was on the Green section of YAHOO for her blog, "A Dress A Day."

Awesome Marisa!

On a dollar a day, she is creating beautiful dresses out of thrift store finds. Her goal?

1 dollar - 1 new dress everyday - for 1 year.

We had lunch a few months back, so I was so excited to she her up here this morning. Congrats!
The Daily Ocean was listed on a blog today as one of the "50 Best Blogs Leading Ocean Acidification Awareness." I was totally excited.

My husband is a coral biologist who just sent in a National Science Foundation grant to study Ocean Acidification on corals in Taiwan next year with his friend Peter who is a Marine Bio. professor at Cal State Northridge. I have a feeling that if they get their grant, The Daily Ocean will continue to earn its spot on this list.

Thanks to the Masters in Public Administration website for including me in your post today.

I got this cool email the other day from Jeannie in Panama City Beach, FL. Looks like there are a bunch of folks out on the beaches with a similar idea to The Daily Ocean and I am so excited to connect with all of them!

Here's what she had to say: (she started her blog since the Gulf BP oil disaster...)

"When the explosion happened, they worried about the people, and the beaches, and wondered how they could help. (her friends who knew she lived in FL)

Since I run on the beach almost every day, I noticed mainly that we, thank God, had no oil, but we have plenty of dolphin and sea turtle killing garbage all over the world's most beautiful beaches.

I have featured the really murderous stuff, figuring to pick my battles, as well as having concern that we here were at one point seeing a concentration of larger creatures that were being driven out of their home bases."

Thanks Jeannie for contacting me. Send me the URL of your blog and I will post it ASAP

AB 1998 NEADS TO THE CA STATE SENATE FOR A VOTE!

Courtesy of Heal the Bay (and co-author of the Bag Ban AB 1998)

Watch - Spread the word, and come on -- call your State Sen. please oh please oh please!!! Tell them you support AB 1998 and you would like them to vote for it too!

Day 139 - August 13, 2010

life guard tower 26 - Ocean Park, Santa Monica CA

trash collected for 20 minutes

1.5 pounds

562.5 total

COMMUNITY COLLECTION COUNT

Day 43

Anna C. - Thank you Anna!

2 pounds

336.8 pounds total
I hadn't noticed that the front of our life guard towers said, "Proudly presented by: deepwaterhorizonresponse.com - Help the Gulf Coast" - made me smile to see this written.

One organization helping the birds affected by the BP oil disaster is the International Bird Rescue Research Center that is now in the Gulf on location, but their home base is "down the beach" in Longbeach CA.

Their founder and director Jay Halcomb won Oceana's Ocean Hero Award this year, and rightly so. On tuesday they released "62 clean, healthy Gulf oil spill birds..." into Atchafalaya State Wildlife Refuge. The refuge is far enough away from the heart of the spill, but will serve as a suitible habitat for the birds. Job well done everyone at the IBRRC!
Meanwhile -- at a press conference for AB 1998 today - Andy Keller of Chico Bag had this to say:

"Have you kicked your bag habit?" - Andy Keller, founder Chico Bag

A person in a lifetime will use 45,000 single use plastic bags. The average American uses 100 a year.....BAG MONSTER BLOG
"Plastic bags are not free. When you go to the store, the cost of the "free" plastic bag is embedded in your grocceries." - Lisa Boyle, Plastic Pollution Coalition

We use 19 billion single use plastic bags in California in one year! Holy S&^%T!!

Day 138 - August 11, 2010

life guard tower 26 - Ocean Park, Santa Monica, CA

trash collected for 20 minutes

1.2 pounds

561 total

COMMUNITY COLLECTION COUNT

Day 42

Mark Armen of Gulpable & The Bait Tank, Robey Clark - Graphic Designer

4 pounds

334.8 pounds total

True - this syringe doesn't have a needle, and it probably never did. It is called an Irrigator, however when I find used medical equipment on the beach I feel disturbed...
Two things about this photograph get my attention.

1. The footprints and their proximity to the plastic cup...

2. The proximity of the plastic cup to the water...

Hmm....I know this was probably left by a fisherman surfcasting from the beach, but I find it funny that there is a plastic top left behind labeled, "NOT FOR HUMAN CONSUMPTION."

Mark and Robey at the end of our 20 minutes. Together we got 5.2 pounds off the beach.

Mark is on a mission to get cigarette butts out of the ocean and save fish. Check out his project that Roby helped design called, "The Bait Tank."

Interesting, well disturbing, facts about cigarette butts: (from Mark's site for The Bait Tank)

In 2009, Professor Richard Gersberg of San Diego State University found that the toxins in littered cigarette butts leach out and have the potential to kill fish. The chemicals from just one filtered cigarette butt had the ability to kill half the fish living in a 1-liter container of water (source: www.cigwaste.org).

Cigarette litter is also the leading contributor (by number of items) to plastic pollution in communities, waterways, and oceans. Cigarette butts are NOT biodegradable; rather made of cellulose acetate, a type of plastic that never fully decomposes.

I know I harp on single use plastic water bottles a lot. Hey, I find a lot of them. Quiz: Can you spot the "greenwashing" on Dasani's label?

Fact - recycling centers will not take plastics made from mixed sources. SO for example if a bottle is made from plant based polymers, and petroleum based polymers - then it can not be recycled. I will do my homework and get back to you, but I am pretty sure that the above bottle is only partly a "plant bottle."

A cause for celebration:

100 PEOPLE DRESSED UP AS BAG MONSTERS AND HEADED STRAIGHT THROUGH THE HEART OF SAN FRANCISCO TODAY TO SHOW THEIR SUPPORT FOR THE BAG BAN, BILL AB 1998 THAT IS FACING A HARD SLOG THROUGH SENATE APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE RIGHT NOW, YIKES! -- BUT THIS VIDEO WILL MAKE YOU SMILE (unless of course you work for the ACC tee-hee-hee)

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

Community Count - Day 41

THE GROOVY NEWS NETWORK

DAY 41 COMMUNITY COLLECTION COUNT

ANNA MARIA ISLAND, FL

3-4 POUNDS IN A FEW DAYS!

THANKS SO MUCH FOR SHARING YOUR FINDINGS WITH US. GLAD THAT YOUR TOES ALL STAYED IN TACT. LAST TIME KATE SLICED HER BIG TOE PRETTY GOOD ON SHARP, DRY DRIFTWOOD. YIKES! I APPRECIATE YOUR EFFORTS AND EXAMPLE OF OCEAN STEWARDSHIP. REALLY HAPPY TO SHARE THIS POST WITH EVERYONE WHO COMES ACROSS IT HERE ON THE DAILY OCEAN.

WANT TO DO A COMMUNITY COLLECTION COUNT? LEAVE ME A COMMENT, OR EMAIL ME. IT'S EASY!

The Groovy News Network team recently went to Anna Maria Island, FL ~ a 7 mile barrier island off of the coast western Florida in the Gulf of Mexico that was discovered by local indian tribes the Timucua and Calusa American Indian tribes and then by Spanish explorers.

We stayed on the northern end of the island where there were temporary nesting areas for a wide variety of shore birds, in particular the Black Skimmer.

I am very pleased to report that we were only able to collect approximately 3 - 4 lbs. of trash over the course of a few days! A very clean & beautiful beach & good news for all the wildlife that lives there!

Seems like every time we collect there is a "theme". This time it seems to be hair bands of all sizes. We also collected a tank top, a bottle or two, plastic bags, cigarette butts, etc..

Day 136 - August 6, 2010

click on the above image for all the details

Come out tomorrow to see the OCEAN MEETS THE LAND festival put on by Randy of Shifting Baselines. Algalita, Surfrider, 5 Gyres, Plastic Pollution Coalition, and Joel Harper (who wrote this amazing children's book, "All Drains Lead to the Ocean," will be there.

life guard tower 26 - Santa Monica, CA

trash collected for 20 min.

5.7 pounds

556.8 total

We found two plastic bottle caps in the first 5 seconds of our collection. We named Day 136 - Day of the Plastic Bottle Top. We got at least 20 in 20 min.....

Does this make sense? How many sips of water do you get from a bottle this size? 3? Not like plastic water bottles make a whole lot of sense either.

PLEASE WATCH ,"THE STORY OF BOTTLED WATER." (It's about 10 minutes long, that's it!) Told by Annie Leonard who wrote, and stared in "The Story of Stuff."

Different plastic bottle, same size, and I deduce left by the same people since there was a little group of three waiting in the sand.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TOMORROW TO DR. MARCUS ERIKSEN,

CO-FOUNDER OF 5 GYRES WITH HIS WIFE ANNA CUMMINS. THE WORLD IS PRETTY HAPPY YOU WERE BORN, ESPECIALLY THE OCEAN!

THANK YOU FOR ALL THAT YOU DO!

BAG IT! A FILM FESTIVAL

COME ON OUT TO UCLA JAMES BRIDGES THEATER ON AUG. 22nd FOR A SCREENING OF "BAG IT" - HOSTED BY THE PLASTIC POLLUTION COALITION - AND OTHER SHORTS AND PSA'S ABOUT PLASTIC POLLUTION.

SHOW YOUR SUPPORT FOR AB1998 - THE BILL TO BAN SINGLE USE PLASTIC BAGS IN CA - AS IT PASSES THROUGH THE CALIFORNIA STATE SENATE THIS SUMMER.

click on the image above for all the details

Bag It Intro from Suzan Beraza on Vimeo.

My friend Dean Maya came back from the Telluride Mountain Film Festival raving about this documentary that he and his wife saw. Thanks to Dean, I found out about BAG IT a few months ago. That's how this works. Word of mouth, friend to friend.

Community Collection Day 40 - Aug. 2, 2010

COMMUNITY COLLECTION COUNT

life guard tower 26 - Santa Monica CA

trash collected for 20 minutes

8 people participated

5.3 pounds collected

326.8 pounds total
It has been a colder, cloudier summer here in southern California. Here's half of our gang tonight heading out to collect some trash off the local beach:

Garen (my husband) - Department Chair of Life Sciences for Santa Monica College and Marine Biologist

Tracy, CEO and founder of Recycled Bride

Anna - hot shot lawyer now embarking on 5 Gyres next trawl across the S. Atlantic

Heather - local acupuncturist & holistic practitioner fr Live Natural Live Well

First trash sighting -- a plastic water bottle top.....

Part of the problem of plastics entering the oceans is that marine life ingest it as food. Here is a well thought out description of that problem from the 5 Gyres website.

Anna Cummins and Marcus Eriksen live in Santa Monica. We are very proud to have them as part of our community as they shake up the world to bring global awareness to the disasterous problem of Plastic Pollution.

We found a buried plastic bag in the sand. It took a lot of digging to unearth it.

When we got it out, it made me wonder what else is buried here in the sand?

For one thing, plastic that breaks down into smaller bits that then becomes mixed into the sand is a leading cause of beach errosion. The plastic is lighter than the ground shells, rocks, and other sediment in the sand. Therefor it makes the sand lighter, which means that it is carried out by the sea water faster....learn more at ALGALITA MARINE RESEARCH

I learned this the other night at a party for our friend Emily Penn who is moving to Brasil to work for Pangea Explorations and go on the S. Atlantic leg of the next 5 Gyres expedition. She has only lived here for a short time, but she made a huge impact on our community.

Thank you Emily. We will miss you!

You always have a home away from home in Santa Monica.

Tracy found this fork in the sand and claimed it as hers to collect. Luckily there wasn't much trash to collect tonight because of the cloudy weather we have been having and the lower temperatures. The conclusion that can draw from this is clear:

LESS PEOPLE = LESS TRASH

Here is Emily Penn and her friend Camden Howitt from Sustainable Coasts in New Zealand that is here in California for the first time. Welcome Camden!

Learn more about the cool work that Emily is doing here at Pangea's website.

Check out the super amazing coastal awareness organization that Camden works with here at

Sustainable Coasts, NZ

Thank you to everyone who came out last night. I think the last person that I have to mention is Denis. He is the creator of HIPPO WORKS for kids, "animals helping you to save the earth." Amazing work! Check it out!

Sorry that I didn't get a picture of you up here, but I really appreciate you coming to the beach to be a part of the Daily Ocean Community Count.

I ask local people who can join me at the beach, or folks who read The Daily Ocean who live elsewhere to do a Daily Ocean style beach cleanup and send me the results. I'll add them to our running tally of pounds collected and put up a post here to share your results. Just email me if you would like to contribute. Contact information and more information about the Community Count can be found on the home page of The Daily Ocean. Thank you!

Day 135 - July 29, 2010

life guard tower 26 - Ocean Park, Santa Monica CA

trash collected for 20 minutes

3.7 pounds

551.1 pounds total

In the video at the beginning of this post you will see that this is not the only water bottle that I found on the beach today.
So many sand toys get abandoned. Do I sound like a broken record? Does that phrase even make sense to the general public anymore?

Well here is someone who finds plastics on the beaches and then turns them into sculpture.

Wren Harris - Washed Ashore - Newport OR

Rob from MERR inspired me when he sent me all of the fabulous videos of his kids collecting trash from Rehoboth Beach in DE. If you missed that post, here it is.

East Coast -- West Coast Trash Talk

The PSA below is very well done courtesy of the Plastic Pollution Coalition. Check it out!

Buried in Plastic PSA Plastic Pollution Coalition from Dianna Cohen on Vimeo.