Day 303 - July 6, 2012

lifeguard tower 26 - Ocean Park, Santa Monica CA

trash collected for 20 min.

5.6 pounds

1,141.8 pounds total

5 cigarette butts

The first item that greeted me from the sand was a Joe Camel stub - a.k.a. cigarette butt. Do they still have Camel Cash? As an underage smoker in the early 90's, I was their target audience. Collect enough "cash" glued to the back of a Camel's pack and you too could get a hat, duffel bag, etc. 

And the next trash item I found was only feet from it's destination. In defense of the person who left it there, the trash can was brimming over with the remains of the day. That's a joke. There's a phrase that applies when you go camping, "pack it in, pack it out." 

A woman left a comment today saying that for years she's done a beach cleanup where she lives. She estimates that she's collected over 15,000 plastic bags alone. She goes on to admit there's no end to it, the beach cleaning that is. And that a solution eludes her. 

I've felt the same way on many occasions. But after reading her comment, I realized I believe that there is a solution. I have to. It may not come in my lifetime, or in our children's, but I believe that we'll see what we're doing to our planet and change. We already are. 

I believe that what I do today effects that eventual tomorrow. I believe that every time I refuse a single use plastic bag, bypass the bottled water, and reduce my own disposable plastic packaging habit, it makes a different. I believe that every person who sees this blog or asks me about my beach cleanup is changed. Maybe the change isn't immediate, maybe it sinks in somewhere into the back of their mind, maybe the change I believe in will come person-by-person. I believe a solution is to change myself. As a wise man who I admire greatly said, 

"Be the change you want to see in the world."

What if we all believed that and then acted like we did? 

Day 302 - July 4, 2012

lifeguard tower 26 - Ocean Park, Santa Monica CA

trash collected for 20 min. 

4 pounds

1,136.2 pounds total

6 cigarette butts

I was worried heading out on July 4th. Many people in Los Angeles from all over the region come to the coast to see Marina Del Ray's fireworks. What would I find? And how much? Well, I am happy to report that I collected my average - 4 pounds. 4 pounds is still 1 pound every 5 min. of very lightweight  mostly plastic items, but it is not what these kids found the day after the 4th last year:

"LAUREN DOCKENDORF, A FOUR-YEAR-OLD VOLUNTEER FOR SAVE OUR SHORES, A BEACH CLEAN-UP ORGANIZATION, SAID HER GROUP COLLECTED ABOUT 12,000 POUNDS OF TRASH IN JUST TWO HOURS FROM BEACHES IN MONTEREY AND SANTA CRUZ ON THE MORNING AFTER LAST YEAR'S INDEPENDENCE DAY CELEBRATIONS."

I know there's a picture of a plastic water bottle above, but this quote from the Monterey Herald about their city's bag ban was too succinct not to re-print here:

"DENISE FRISCHMUTH, PRESIDENT OF CITIZENS FOR SUSTAINABLE MONTEREY COUNTY, NOTED THAT PLASTIC SHOPPING BAGS ARE A PETROLEUM PRODUCT. "ABOUT 100 BILLION PLASTIC CHECKOUT BAGS ARE USED EACH YEAR IN THE UNITED STATES, AND THOSE BAGS ARE PRODUCED WITH NONRENEWABLE OIL AND GAS, CREATING EMISSIONS THAT HARM OUR ATMOSPHERE AND CONTRIBUTING GREATLY TO OUT DEPENDENCE ON OIL," SHE SAID. "IT'S ESTIMATED THAT THE PRODUCTION OF THOSE BAGS REQUIRES ABOUT 12 MILLION BARRELS OF OIL ANNUALLY. WE'RE USING A NONRENEWABLE RESOURCE FOR A PRODUCT THAT IS THROWN AWAY, THEN CARTED TO THE DUMP."

Happy 4th of July!

While the low cloud ceiling may not have made for great fireworks viewing, it sure contributed to a stunning sunset.

Day 301 - June 30, 2012

lifeguard tower 26 - Ocean Park, Santa Monica CA

trash collected for 20 min.

2 pounds 

1,132.2 pounds total 

COMMUNITY COUNT DAY 231

Rita, Anne, Mikayla, Swan

8 pounds

973.8 pounds total

THE DAILY OCEAN COMBINED TOTAL - 2,106 POUNDS

Want to get involved? 

Find out more about doing your own Daily Ocean 20 min. cleanup

15 cigarette butts

My inlaws put leftovers from our dinners together into styrofoam to-go containers like this one from Costco. that they buy in bulk. I've always felt torn about this. They seem to have moved to glass containers in recent months, probably from conversations we've had about plastic containers and what they leach into food. I showed them this photograph Sunday when I was at their house. "See what this is?" I said. They didn't answer really, but the point of the images I share is that hopefully a "picture says a thousand words." Images sink into our psyche in ways that are just as powerful as words. 

Perhaps that's why I utilize both to talk to you.

OK, so a BIG thank you to my friends Rita, Anne, Mikayla and Swan who spent part of their sunny Sat. night collecting modern detritus from the sand. Mikayla commented that, "It was surprisingly fun to clean the beach." Here-here sister!!

This mesh bag that may have once held some of the sand toys strewn across the place alarmed Rita. She knows that if this swath of plastic mesh gets blown into the water, it's going to take out some marine life with it. Marine entanglement due to discarded plastic trash makes me cringe too, not to mention what it does to the animals...

Anne on the sand giving it her all.,,

 A German family came up to her and put some trash their kid found into her bag. 

"What you are doing is really important," said the father. You can't see it, but I'm smiling. 

One thought I come back to again and again is that we just don't see it. I mean the collective "we." We walk right on by the trash on our street, in our neighborhoods, or cities, and so why wouldn't we do the same here? Besides the fact the beach is a sacred, beautiful, elemental place that invigorates us all. 

But seriously, I think we've grown complacent to the trash that surrounds us. The natural world has not. 

Rita and a recruit...

As I take this shot I hear, "Fishes and animals die when they eat plastic so we want to find all the plastic and pick it up so they don't get sick?" says Rita.

"Plastic? Fishes, all fishes get sick?" says the little boy. 

"Yes, the birds and animals get sick if they eat our trash, see?" Rita shows him what's in the bag. 

He and his friend join the hunt for plastic along the tide line for a minute or two. Every few seconds I hear, "Here's some, here's some!" 

Kids are the greatest. 

A visual metaphor?

Saturdays, and weekends are hard in the summer. Lots of people enjoying the outdoors, the sand in their toes and bathing suits, the sun kissing their cheeks and shoulders....but with people comes trash, making my weekend collections hard to stomach. 

I'm going out in a couple of hours to see the after effects of July 4th....

Day 300 - June 28, 2012

lifeguard tower 26 - Ocean Park, Santa Monica CA

trash collected for 20 min.

5.5 pounds

1,133.7 pounds total

8 cigarette butts

Last night was my 300th beach cleanup. I have to say, it felt like a huge milestone. There have been times over the last three years that I wanted to call it quits. Wondering if it mattered if I finished, we all know what's out there, how many freakin' times can I write about, or pick up a plastic bag?! You get the idea. But with 65 collections left to go, I am so SO SO glad I stuck it out. It is important to meet my goal, to continue to share these images with you, to finish what I set out to do. 

I've said it before, but beach cleanups alone are not a viable answer to getting this junk (mostly plastic) out of our ocean. However, it was the first way I felt compelled to act. That initial action to cleanup the stretch of sand at the end of our street catapulted me into learning about ocean health, plastic pollution, and so much more. 

I've changed my habits because of these beach cleanups. I'm pretty sure I still drank water from plastic bottles when I began. I can't remember the last time I did that, or baught one. Why? Personally, I know too much about the tainted water inside. I learned about that because I got sick of picking them off the sand and wanted to know more. There are only so many times you can retrieve stranded plastic water bottles before that's the last thing you'd reach for in a convienence store. Infact, I try to stay clear of all plastic bottled beverages. I changed because of my direct experience with them on beach cleanups. 

That's one way I do believe beach cleanups are effective. Most of you will never do 300 of them, but you will do a few. If you're reading this blog, you're probably already into ocean conservation and perhaps love the beach. And in those few beach cleanups that you'll do, you may experience a shift in your own habits as a result of finding discarded plastic detritus from our modern life spoiling a place that you love, harming animals you'd rather protect, and endangering our natural world for future generations. 

COMMUNITY COUNT DAY 230 

Marissa

trash collected for 20 min. 

2.5 pounds collected

965.8 pounds total 

We gave this 2012 bottle of bubbles to a five-year-old passing us on the boardwalk. He promised not to leave it on the sand when he was finished playing with the unopened container of soapy fun. 

A big thank you to Marrisa who called to me from the parking lot as I passed, "Are you doing a beach cleanup? Can I come?" She'd driven down to 26 to surf, but it was blown out, that is to say - unsurfable. Instead, we took to the sand together. Kismet. Instant friends. We know people in common, and share a love of the ocean. Thanks for coming out Marrisa, you brightened my day too. 

Day 299 - June 26, 2012

lifeguard tower 26 - Ocean Park, Santa Monica CA

trash collected for 20 min. 

5.3 pounds

2 cigarette butts

I thought it might be fun to call this 800 number and tell them "how they're doing" with their plastic packaging. It's their customers, not the company leaving their empties behind, right? Well, EPR - Extended Producer Responsibility - asks companies to be responsible for the life of their products from creation to disposal. Here's a more precise definition. 

"There is a proven policy being applied in a growing number of jurisdictions to deliver impressive results in recycling and waste reduction. That policy is Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR), also known as Product Stewardship. EPR shifts responsibility for recycling or other safe disposal of products and packaging to those who design, market and profit from them: the producers."

Should we call "Mickey D's" and ask them if they've heard of it?

My friend Alfonso wrote an Op-Ed piece on the recycling, or lack of, during the Rio+20 Summit. As an Environmental Consultant living in Rio concerned about Plastic Pollution, 

his view point is informed and well thought out. 

Here's the link. 

My friend Danielle is back on the beach after a couple weeks of a hectic schedule. 

Here's her latest post from IT STARTS WITH ME. 

She finds hundreds of cigarettes on her 20 min. beach cleanups in the south. I found two tonight. 

Guess which of our two beaches bans cigarette smoking?

Another summer night where my bag was full to bursting after 20 min. 

Day 298 - June 23, 2012

lifeguard tower 26 - Ocean Park, Santa Monica CA

trash collected for 20 min.

2.2 pounds

1,122.9 pounds total 

2 cigarette butts

As Mark, Kit and I walked from the surf to the showers this morning Mark kicked up a bottle cap and said, "If I had a nickel for every plastic bottle cap I've picked up, I'd probably have a hundred dollars." I bet he'd have more. I wonder how much I'd have scraped together from 298 beach cleanups?

Mylar balloon as abstract shell form. 

People comment that my trash pictures are beautiful. I remember one email in particular from my friend Judy. "Boy, you sure make that trash look good." Uh-oh, I thought. But even a photo like this makes the point that this synthetic balloon is out of place...

in a creative boy-that-balloon-looks-cool kind of a way...

7:45. Summer. Wonderful.

Day 297 - June 22, 2012

lifeguard tower 26 - Ocean Park, Santa Monica CA

trash collected for 20 min.

5.2 pounds

1,120.7 pounds total 

There were many abandoned sand toys left out last night, improvisational ones like this plastic container and the colorful made for castle forming variety. For the third or fourth time this month my bag was full to bursting at the twenty minute mark. I'd be carrying my trash bounty away with me if I didn't adhere to the 20 min. limit...

Happy Birthday to my friend Danielle who writes the blog, "It Starts With Me." If you've checked out The Daily Ocean before, you've seen me link to her site multiple times. She keeps me inspired. We are doing a cigarette butt comparison for our respective 20 min. beach cleanups. I only found 3 tonight where she usually finds 300 on her N.C. beach and that's no exageration. 


So Happy Birthday Danielle. As our friend Mark and I walked along last night, he reminded me it was your B-Day. We thought of you and knew you were with us in spirit! 

Day 296 - June 21, 2012

lifeguard tower 26 - Ocean Park, Santa Monica CA

trash collected for 20 min. 

3 pounds

1,115.5 pounds total 

2 cigarette butts

As I'm out on a cleanup, people walk right up to, and past the trash I'm approaching. I don't curse them in my mind, but I do wonder how they could pass by without bending down to pick it up? Another question usually follows; did they even see the plastic bottle in the first place? My hope is that The Daily Ocean helps people first see, and then act, question, and change. 

Styrofoam cups will be around long after the sand castles they helped build melt into the sea.

This cup left behind may be intact for now.

But give it time, and it will break down into smaller and smaller pieces. These pieces become fish and bird food, absorb toxins, polluting the environment and eventually our own bodies. Fish eat broken-down plastics that have absorbed toxins, the toxins then dissolve into the fish's tissue, we eat the fish along with the dose of toxins it now carries. 

It' hard to imagine the environmental threats the ocean faces when out on a day like this. But overfishing, plastic pollution and global warming are three problems stressing our Blue Planet to the max. See the PEW report from the Rio+20 Summit that concludes tomorrow. How did the oceans fare? Sue Lieberman, PEW Director of International Policy reports - 

"BE A HERO, OUR OCEANS NEED YOU"

Day 295 - June 20, 2012

lifeguard tower 26 - Ocean Park, Santa Monica CA

trash collected for 20 min.

1.5 pounds

1,112.5 pounds total

2 cigarette butts

The beach was blissfully clean tonight. I got to the parking lot after they'd closed the gate so I had to ditch my car in street parking and sprint over to the sand before I lost all of the sunlight. Eight o'clock in late June there's still enough light to get down for a cleanup, but once the sun slips behind the Santa Monica Mountains I'm out of luck since I don't use a flash for my photographs. You can guess how close I cut it last night considering there are only two photos up in this post...

Yesterday was International Surfing Day. I'm not sure who claimed it as such, but Surfrider came out in the morning and did a beach cleanup. Maybe that's why at the end of the day, except for this balloon, I got to walk along smiling at the clean sand. Sure, there was still some trash to be collected but only a pound and a half for a summer's night is pretty darn good. I left the beach with a smile. 

Day 294 - June 17, 2012

lifeguard tower 26 - Ocean Park, Santa Monica CA

trash collected for 20 min.

3.5 pounds

1,111 pounds total 

3 cigarette butts

As I walked onto the sand, this plastic bag blew straight at me. That's my foot, stopping its run to the parking lot. I guess if this urban tumbleweed is going to take flight, I'd rather it head for the concrete behind me. 

My friend Kit gave me an LA Times insert called, "Water Stewardship." Surfer Rob Machado is one of the stewards interviewed. Here's a fact he relayed that if I'd read, I'd forgotten and may impact your choice to reach for a plastic bottle of water next time you're thirsty. 

"A little secret on plastic bottles is that it takes about 6 gallons of water to create each bottle of water, and that only 20% of those bottles are ever recycled." 

My friend Harry from The Flotsam Diaries blog does a great job demystifying recycling, or what we assume happens when we "recycle." Carreful, reading his posts are much like taking the blue pill in the Matrix....or is it the red pill. It's been awhile since I've seen the movie. But you get the implied idea, there's no turning back once you know...

For the first time since I started The Daily Ocean over three years ago, I crossed paths with another beach cleaner-upper while out on my collection. The first time you say? Yes, as far as I can remember I've never come face-to-face with someone out on the beach with a shared mission at sunset. 

As he walked toward me and I saw him bending in the sand collecting what I hoped was trash and not just sand dollars, my excitement grew. As he passed me, his plastic bag filled with trash in hand, I asked if he was cleaning the beach. He said yes, and asked me if I was too. 

Here's what cracks me up. All I could do is say yes, and thank you. I've engaged dozens of people on the beach who stop to talk to me. I tell them the name of my blog, I tell them how many pounds I've collected between two measly lifeguard towers (1,1111 lbs. to date), I chat. Tonight I was strangely tongue-tied. With a grin spreading ear to ear I contemplated calling it a night. He'd done the job. But then my curiosity told me to back track over the stretch of beach he'd just covered to see what he might have missed, or if more had washed up. Not as a critique of his cleanup, but as an excercise to see just how much crap is out here on a Sunday night. Sunday being a big beach day in the summer.

Tonight's 3.5 pounds of trash came from a stretch of sand cleaned moments before....

Day 293 - June 15, 2012

lifeguard tower 26 - Ocean Park, Santa Monica CA

trash collected for 20 min.

11 pounds

1,107.5 pounds total

0 cigarette butts

June Gloom is what the locals call this month. A heavy marine layer blankets our coast for a few weeks, making sunset seem like it's an hour before its time. 

After twenty minutes my bag was too full to continue even if I didn't adhere to a time limit. Gloomy would be one word I'd use to describe how I felt walking off the beach with 11 pounds of junk in less than half and hour.

I've avoided posting about last night's cleanup today mostly because it makes me revisit the dirty fact of 11 pounds in 20 minutes twice. My husband Garen reminded me that a post like this is even more urgent to share. This sentiment summarizes what I thought about while walking our dogs tonight. 

In the face of such an overwhelming problem (plastic pollution and trash in our oceans) action can only inspire change. The how, when, and who of which are largely out of my hands. But still, taking action has to be enough sometimes. This shot of our beach doesn't capture the bits of plastic wrapping and bags tangled in every inch of the seaweed washed ashore. 

I was too busy picking it up to get better pictures tonight. 

Three people stopped to talk to me because the trash was so noticeable, 

as if I would know the reason why. And there are so many reasons, 

too many variables for one short post, 

but the take home point is this, we connected person to person. 

I connect with you person to person whenever you read one of my posts. 

I'd like to think that each time this happens, a spark of change can occur. 

I stuffed this in the leg of my wetsuit yesterday morning while body-surfing. Lots of trash on the beach means lots of trash in the water too. I get a double dipping of it some days.