Plastic Cups with Environmental Messages for KIDS???

Below are two pictures from a concerned parent, and reader of The Daily Ocean,

Wendy Chambers AKA goldensgreengirl.

She contacted me a little while back with these thoughts:

I thought you might be interested in this story:

A couple of weeks back I was visiting a family member in BC, Canada... at a restaurant named Kelseys.

I asked for a orange juice drink for my daughter and they gave me this cup.

I was totally astounded, this cup is made of polypropylene and has a depiction of abundant marine life on it !!! endorsed by Discovery Kids

- my first thought was this is a total contradiction and then this turned to anger...... I need help or advice in finding out how these marketing companies can get it sooooo wrong and get away with this producing this plastic cup with this image on?

The "funny" thing was that on the very next day while walking on the beach with a friend in Santa Monica, I found the cup pictured below.

It says on it - "BE GOOD TO THE EARTH - IT'S OUR HOME" - sponsor unknown

A group of woodland creatures has gathered around this red-headed boy, and brown haired girl to plant a tree. Other characters that have joined are two recycling bins with big smiley faces (creepy), and windmills in the background. WOW.

So I will ask you the same question. How do we influence corporations to stop "getting it so wrong" when it comes to environmental advertising geared towards the youth, and well polluting the environment at the same time?

Sarah Nan - from Florida Community Collection Count

My friend Debbie put me in touch with her friend Sarah Nan in Florida. Above is a picture of what her local ocean view is.

She has emailed me pictures, and an account from a recent river cleanup that she did. Reading is believing. I've attached her email to me below in parts.

"I just did a clean up in March at McCoy's Creek in Jacksonville, Florida for the 15th Annual St. Johns River Celebration.

This creek flows into the St. Johns River and then flows into the Atlantic Ocean.

We pulled out 24 tires, a mattress, box spring, two shopping carts, and 23 large bags of litter (six of those bags were nothing but plastic bottles), a very large tv, a bike, and a semi- truck hood out of the creek . This all came from one tiny area (about 900 feet).

I am also doing a cigarette scan tomorrow around a local hospital that has banned smoking on campus, and have a very bad cigarette litter issue that needs to be addressed. The last scan at the hospital, we had picked up 10,000 butts from a small area, right next to the river. - (really? wow that is just totally absurd!!)

Sarah didn't weigh her findings, but I am adding this post to the Community Collection Count anyway. Thank you Sarah for your hard work, and enormous effort. I hope to post more from your Florida cleanups in the future!

Day 117 - May 2

life guard tower26 - Ocean Park, Santa Monica CA

trash collected for 20 min.

4.5 pounds

462.6 pounds total

This potato chip bag was taken out of the trash can by a sea gull as I watched.

Solution? Trash cans with lids for the 10 - 15 of them that line the beach between life guard towers....I know Santa Monica is working on it, but until then, see above.

Today I played with my new Kodak hand held video camera. I had captured the gull ripping at a plastic bag inside the trash can, (don't worry, he didn't get it out, or eat it, I stopped him), and I was all ready to play with video blogging when I pressed a formatting button on my camera this morning sitting here at my desk, and presto, promptly erased everything I shot from last night's cleanup.

Note to self - when reading manual PAY ATTENTION to what the buttons are for instead of randomly pressing them WITH the manual open. Rats.

A top to...something made of plastic and it looked like it had washed in from the bay.

Like so many people around the world, I'm focused on the BP Gulf oil spill that happened recently. My inbox has been flooded with different environmental organizations weighing in with emails to drum up volunteers, or raise funds to help them battle this disasturous spill.

Global Green is an organization based in Santa Monica that opened their New Orleans office in response to Hurricane Katrina. They have set up a way to volunteer through their website, here's the link. And also - as you can imagine - had a thing or two to say that I pass on here.

"We mourn first for the 11 immediate victims who lost their lives when BP Oil's deep drill rig exploded last week. These hard working Americans, just like the 29 coal miners recently killed in West Virginia, lost their lives to provide us with the energy we need to maintain our modern lives by working in one of the world's most dangerous industries - carbon intensive energy production.

We are just now starting to consider the second wave of victims as millions of gallons of oil begins its march - without apparent end - onto Louisiana's shores, as well as our Gulf coast neighbors. The impact will likely include:

• The destruction of the livelihood of thousands of families who depend upon the fishing, shrimping, oyster harvesting, shipping, and tourism industries.
• More than 400 different species poisoned, potentially killing hundreds of thousands of animals, including countless migratory birds, fish, dolphins, and whales.
• The contamination of fragile coastal wetlands that protect hundreds of thousands of Louisianans, including New Orleans, as well as our nation's critical oil and gas and shipping infrastructure, and the most productive estuary in the nation."

And may I add, there was a safety shut off system for the oil well that was not installed because it was deemed too expensive......now we face a diaster possibly much worse than the Exxon Valdez spill....expensive in so many more heartbreaking ways than I can wrap my head around.

I find so, so, SO many plastic bottle caps on the beach.

Learn more about the CA Assembly Bill 925 to leash the lid to the bottle. There's been some progress to get this thru the legislature, but we'll need your support. I'll have updates on this bill as it goes through the process into, hopefully, becoming a law...at least in California.

read more here - "Since 1989, the start of data collection for Coastal Cleanup Day, 1,044,414 bottle caps have been collected from the state’s shorelines and waterways..."
The water line was littered with clear plastic wrappers, straws, food packaging, and plastic bottle tops tonight.

I collect from the same strip of beach every time.

I go to the beach at the end of Ocean Park Blvd. in Santa Monica and walk straight out to life guard tower 26, then turn left and head south to tower 28.

On a "good" day, I walk there and back in 20 min..

On a bad day, like today, I walk 100 feet down from tower 26.

The distance between tower 26 and 28 is at least 2 football fields in length....

Two things to end this post.

1. Carl Safina's blog entry on the oil spill. Like I said thru TWITTER, he is one of my ocean heroes.

2. Food and Water Watch's Seafood Guide. It gives you alternatives to some of your favorite fish that are no longer a safe choice for you, or the environment. Check it out.

From 30,000 feet

OCEANA'S OCEAN PLEDGE PSA

I just met TED DANSON on my flight to NYC. I watched

Oceana's PSA from

my seat using the Wi-Fi connection on

American Airlines when I remembered seeing

him board the same plane! I tried

to tone down my

excitement about this cool coincidence

and calmly walked to business class to

introduce myself as one of Oceana's

"Ocean Hero finalists" for 2010.

He was very gracious, and sincere.

I have to say, that was a fun conversation to have.

I really love that he dedicates his time to helping

raise awareness for our oceans.

What a cool flight!

Pledge to be an ocean hero!

Day 116 - April 28, 2010

life guard tower 26 - Ocean Park, Santa Monica CA

trash collected for 20 min.

1.8 pounds

458.1 pounds total
So many exciting things to share with you in this post, but I wanted to first say that this will be my last post for a few days because I will be in Conn. for a family funeral this weekend.

I'll be able to collect again starting this Sunday.

Thanks for reading the Daily Ocean, and enjoy this post!

They've painted all the life guard towers groovy colors in the last few days. Looking great!

FIRST - I was named a finalist for the OCEAN HERO AWARD from OCEANA. Voting started today. Please help spread the word to vote.

I am exprememly honored and humbled to be listed with the other 5 adult finalists and 5 youth finalists. If you read all of their bios, you'll be very inspired too! It's a win for the ocean that Oceana is doing this. SO please vote - every vote Oceana gets 1$ - and that's a very good thing because they are:

"Oceana is the largest international Ocean Protection & Restoration Environmental advocacy group dedicated to protecting and restoring the world's oceans and ..."

Pledge to be an ocean hero!

It was an extremely windy day today, but like on all windy days, the only thing I find that can withstand the weather is...plastic. Lots of clear plastic wrappers get un-earthed. Plastic water bottle tops, straws and the occasional cigarette butt seem to have sticking power on even the most blustery days.

Check out this video that the Malloy Brothers did which can be found on the Plastic Pollution Coalition's site. PLASTIC GOT THERE FIRST is the title.

You can imagine what that means coming from two of the world's top professional surfers who scour the globe for pristine waves.
This week a man named Steve Mc Pherson contacted me about his project to collect, photograph, and catalog plastic found on beaches and in marine environments. You can send him your pictures to add to his efforts too.

He is an artist living in the UK that has been making art with plastic for the past 15 years!

I am asking beach combers, foragers and anyone else to send photos and location details of interesting Marine Plastic that they find beached during their wanderings of the shores of the world. The project aims to document the people, places and plastic that litters our coastlines, maybe along the way it will provide some interesting or useful data, as well as hopefully bringing a greater awareness of the plastic pollution of our oceans and seas. Here's his website: www.marineplastic.org

My friend Lindsey Jurca is a teacher at ECHS Environmental Charter High School in Lawndale CA.

They are one of 6 schools in competition to have:

OBAMA COME GIVE THE COMMENCEMENT SPEECH!

HELP THEM BY CASTING YOUR VOTE HERE!

Here's their school's video that "caught the president's eye" :D How f%^**g cool is that!

Ocean Minded has the coolest suggestion attached to their apparel:

They ask you to pick up 10 pieces of trash whenever you go to your favorite beach, or out door place. Talk about positive corporate responsibility. This whole company in San Clemente was founded on love for the ocean. I'm a fan!

Day 115 - April 24, 2010

life guard tower 26 - Ocean Park, Santa Monica CA

trash collected for 20 min.

2.4 pounds

456.3 pounds total
Today I am happy to say, I was totally wrong about how much trash I was about to find when I walked out onto the beach.

It was a clear, beautiful Saturday. Usually, there is a lot of evidence that people have enjoyed themselves at the beach, but today I didn't find one cigarette butt, or plastic water bottle. I'm shocked, happy, and feeling pretty good about finding under three pounds of trash, including this Baja Fresh wrapper.
Here's an excerpt from a Kiss My Country post that I found really interesting:

"Recently, technology has played a huge part in contributing to the solutions of tough global and social issues. Through social media, people can connect and rally around a cause and give it global recognition. In the past year, on Twitter alone, we’ve seen huge numbers of people give support to the earthquake victims of Haiti, people going green for the Iran Elections, and going red for World AIDS Day. Garnering this much support raises awareness of the issues, encourages discussion, and gets us that much closer to a solution."

Earth Day - April 22, 2010 with the Peace Troop

This is the Peace Troop. I had the good fortune to meet them last September at the Santa Monica Pier during the Day of Peace organized by Jane Goodall's Roots and Shoots organization.

They are pictured above in October when they came out to life guard tower 26 to do a beach cleanup with me.

A little background on them - Mothers, Kelly and Sherry decided that the traditional Girl Scouts weren't environmentally active enough - and so they split to form the Peace Troop. In a word, awesome.

We spent Earth Day together watching the film Tapped that, "examines the role of the bottled water industry and its' effects on our health, climate change, pollution, and our reliance on oil."

One of the troopers asked, "Why doesn't Obama stop them."

Them being the big bottled water corporations of Nestle, Coke and Pepsi.

"That's a good question," I said. There wasn't enough time at the end to come back to that question.....

But they did decide 3 things:

1. to go home and tell their family about what they learned from watching TAPPED.

2. to tell their friends at school tomorrow.

3. to write a certain popular LA TV talk show host, that shall remain nameless here, to reconsider having the director of Tapped, Stephanie Soechtig, on her show instead of caving to the pressures of her sponsor....Pepsi - well they left that last part out.

I think it was unanymous though that everyone was going to switch to, "one of those stainless steel reusable bottles." I told them about Kleen Kanteen and that you could find them at Whole Foods among other places. Finally - when we watched Capt. Charles Moore of the Algalita Marine Research Foundation in Long Beach, CA being interviewed walking the remote Hawaiian Beach littered with single use plastic water bottles, every one got very quiet. We live in a coastal city. This segment hit close to home.

So Happy Earth Day to the Peace Troop and to the people who made TAPPED. It was a great way to spend this day. I'll leave you with this -

Fact from Tapped - "The US uses 80 million single use water bottles a day. The recycling rate world wide for these containers is about 50%, but the US falls behind at 20%."

The rest end up in landfills, and in the ocean.......

A message for you from the Peace Troop

Day114 - April 21, 2010

life guard tower 26 - Ocean Park, Santa Monica CA

trash collected for 20 minutes

4.4 pounds

453.9 pounds total
I arrived to a 57 degree, windy beach thinking that there wouldn't be that much trash to collect tonight. Hey, there wasn't much out there anyway, just me, a runner or two, and a couple of gulls. I was wrong, there was plenty of trash....Most of it plastic, actually can't think of anything that I picked up today that wasn't made of plastic.
Which leads me to this picture. This picture is only funny - in a horrible kind of way - if you are an environmentalist. This picture was shot in a Sacramento Staples store when I traveled with Team Marine to our capital for Ocean's Day where they were honored with an Ocean Hero award. Check out their blog for more details. I have a post to come about it too!

Also - Lisa Boyle of the Plastic Pollution Coalition has written an interesting post on their blog about a panel that was held in Santa Monica a few weeks back called, The Politics of Plastic.
The only thing tough enough to withstand the windy weather on the beach? Plastic bits and pieces...

Sarah Newman wrote a piece for the Huffington Post called Ten Anti-Plastic Heroes.

I was so excited to see myself listed with Beth Terry of Fake Plastic Fish, The Green Bag Lady and Jordan Howard of Environmental Charter High School in Lawndale, among others. Thanks Sarah!

Read more from Sarah on the Huffington Post, or on Take Part and follow her on twitter.

Team Marine has an incredible 13 min. short documentary called, "10 R's"

watch it here - or - here

Press Release by Team Marine member Valerie Wacker and Teacher Mentor Benjamin Kay


After over 500 hours of filming, editing, and reviewing four years of student photos and videos, Santa Monica High School’s Team Marine completed their biggest project of the year, a 14-minute, science-based documentary - “The 10 R’s” - highlighting the global plastic marine debris crisis and ten sustainable solutions (the 10 R’s) to our single-use plastic addiction, and in general, to our negative human foot-print. Current issues covered in the film include plastic ingestion by organisms, entanglement, benthic smothering, the adsorption and release of toxic chemicals, biological magnification, loss of tourism, and corporate irresponsibility.

Day 113 - April 18, 2010

life guard tower 26 - Ocean Park, Santa Monica CA

trash collected for 20 minutes

6.2 pounds

449.5 pounds total

I think these are melon flavored rolling papers. Can you say disgusting?!

April has been a tough month for me making progress on The Daily Ocean. I've been out of town for most of the last two weeks only to come home from my spring break trip with a cold.

I think this may be the 7th or 8th cold since Sept. and I am telling you, I'm over it. Anyone else feel like the age of the super bug is upon us?

I'd like to thank Danielle Davis for mentioning me in her article, "Five LA Women Bloggers Up To Green Good."

She has two projects going that she writes for

Your Daily Thread and Less Is More Balanced. Check those out too! Thanks for connecting Danielle.

This picture doesn't do justice to the mess I found on the beach tonight. It was strewn for as far as I could see with mostly plastic packaging and straws. It looked to me that the trash had come in from the water and been left at the high tide line as the surf retreated. 6.2 pounds in 20 minutes of wrappers that are milliliters thick is not a good feeling.
Kiss My Country Blog has a great post up about a filmmaker named Laura Seltzer who made a movie entitled, "Last boat Out" about Chesapeake Bay. It catalogs the fishermen in the bay whose way of life is threatened by the pollution there. Very interesting, and sad. It was shown to the U.S. Congress organized by the Congressional Water Caucas. Check it out.

Monteray Bay Aquarium with Team Marine

Monteray Bay Aquarium is a stand out place dedicated to raising awareness for all issues of ocean conservation. It was tremendous to see the aquarium buzzing with activity while taking in the ocean life there that is so well cared for.

Thank you to the aquarium for giving Team Marine free entry for the day!

A Weedy Sea Dragon - now my screensaver.

There are many signs strewn throughout the exhibits that are thought provoking and truthful.

Barnacles - can you see their legs?

One exhibit included objects sunk into the tank that would be found around a pier to demonstrate some of our contributions to marine debris pollution in the ocean and what it would look like submerged.

Jellies!

Sardines - this tank made me feel dizzy when I stood up close.

A Weedy Sea Dragon in action, and my first attempt at video blogging.

Day 112, April 9 2010

life guard tower 26 - Ocean Park, Santa Monica CA

trash collected for 20 minutes

6.2 pounds collected

443.3 pounds total
I've had a very full week that has led to feeling inspired, and hopeful about the state of our oceans. Don't get me wrong, the situation is grim, but taking 5 days to travel with Team Marine to Sacramento to lobby for legislation that supports our oceans, and beaches was the trip of a lifetime.
Environmental groups were out in force for Sacramento's Third Annual Ocean's Day - like Environment California. I received an email from them to a link where we can sign a petition in support of the bill passing through state congress right now to ban smoking on california state beaches.

Here's the link.

Once passed though, we (the public), need to keep an eye out to demand that it is enforced. This doesn't address the problem of storm drains carrying a cities worth of cig. butts into the ocean, but hey it's a step in the right direction. Especially in light of the fact that:

"On one day in 2009, volunteers pulled 340,221 cigarette butts off California beaches. [1]"

1] http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/editorials/la-ed-cigarette24-2010mar24,0,5037237.story

-Dan Jacobson Environment California

Toxicity studies

SDSU public health researcher and CBAG Member Richard Gersberg evaluated the effects left-over cigarette butts have on marine life and found that the chemicals from just one filtered cigarette butt had the ability to kill half the fish living in a 1-liter container of water. Cigarette filters are made of cellulose-acetate, which is not biodegradable.

Roz Savage - Ocean Rower Extraordinaire - is setting off on the last leg of her Pacific Crossing to raise awareness for issues like plastic pollution in the ocean and global climate change.

Follow her.

She's an inspiration. I had the privilege of hearing her speak last night and I have to tell you she's amazing. To briefly re-cap part of her story, she wrote two obituaries years ago before she switched from a practical life that felt like a dead end, to "stepping off the edge of the known world", as she put it.

She wrote the obit. that would be shaped from the life she was living and an alternative obit. of the life she wanted to live. "One that left the planet in slightly better condition than when she found it." Well she has done that. And what a f&%&*ing cool idea. How brave, to write both obits. and have the courage to change.

Thank you Roz for the millions of people your story will touch, and the planet that will benefit from your courageous spirit and tremendous actions.

She also has a project about to launch called Eco Heroes - check that out and sign up too!!