Day 131 - July 17, 2010

life guard tower 26 - Ocean Park, Santa Monica CA

trash collected for 20 minutes

13.2 pounds

528.9 total
13.2 pounds sent me around the park on my bike just after dark, which is not recommended, to blow off some steam. Then into my living room for a variety of sit-ups, crunches, push-ups and other energy releasing activities that made my dog further question my odd behavior.

One good thing about tonight's collection was a girl of about 12 came over to thank me saying that she hopes that she could do something like this in the future. Pretty cool. I told her to grab an extra bag when she went to the beach next time, thanked her, and gave her a big smile.

When I got back to the parking lot I wanted to stop strangers standing by their car smoking cigarettes to ask them if they could guess how many pounds of trash I'd found in 20 minutes. 13 pounds! I wanted to yell at them while probably adding an animated, "Can you believe that?"

I refrained.
Since the poundage and pictures speak for themselves here, I am going to infuse the rest of this post with some positivity. (Especially in light of the fact that the "oil cap" is "leaking" sigh :< )

1. One of my favorite blogs, Kiss My County, has come out with a post about Rachel Carson. The post asks us to think about whether or not the famed female environmental/writer/scientist would have been part of the newly formed BOEMRE (Bureau of Ocean Management, Regulation and Enforcement) or whether she would have turned in her Wildlife Fish and Game governmental uniform for a Greenpeace membership if she were alive today. Interesting to think about.....
2. My friend Keely works for Roots and Shoots in San Fransisco. Roots and Shoots is the environmental youth organization founded by Jane Goodall. Keely sent out an email last week to announce to her friends and family that,

"This week Jane Goodall celebrated 50 years of research that started in Gombe in Tanzania. This CNN video talks about Roots & Shoots and makes me really happy! I am very proud to be a part of her work." (check out the video - link highlighted in the sentance above)

I want to walk to entire coast of California in a couple of years. Check out the people who make it possible to find a trail from tip to tail. www.coastwalk.org Their website is the hub for all things Hiking Coastal California.

I'd like to collect trash for 20 minutes a day while walking, keep it, and assemble a trashy sculpture at the end so that people can see a fraction of what lines our coasts, and what one person can do about it. Want to help?
The Smithsonian's Ocean Portal - is a wealth of resources on all things "Blue Planet." From music videos to sections just "for Educators." You will find amazing information here about the oceans. Brought to you by the National Museum of Natural History, the Ocean Portal is amazing!

Lastly - Danielle of It Starts With Me blog, sent me this link to the Karen Beasley Sea Turtle Rescue and Rehabilitation Center 30 minutes from her house. They recieve no state or federal funding!

Who doesn't feel better by helping a sea turtle? Knowing that people are dedicating themselves to this work makes my day. It can even help me smile on a day when I collect 13 pounds of mostly plastic garbage off my local beach in 20 minutes, and learn that BP's "oil cap" is leaking.......

Day 130 - July 16, 2010

life guard tower 26 - Ocean Park, Santa Monica CA

trash collected for 20 min.

5.7 pounds

515.7 pounds total

COMMUNITY COUNT COLLECTION - Danielle, Aaron, Chase, Claire, and Henri

DAY 36

5.4 pounds

312.9 pounds total
Arrowhead water... There's a saying I learned growing up - "IF CAN'T SAY ANYTHING NICE, DON'T SAY ANYTHING AT ALL." This phrase would apply to my feelings about bottled water. However, keeping silent about the damaging environmental impacts of bottled water is not an option.

- if you filled a plastic water bottle about 1/4th of the way up with petroleum, that is approximately how much it takes to make the plastic bottle.

- why do we continue to buy products that are used for minutes and their packaging sticks around forever ? (plastic is fairly new - 1970's - some estimates are 1,000 yrs. for breakdown, mostly we are learning as we go)......

- oh yeah - and it is 10,000% percent mark up to buy bottled water then fill up at the tap in your own house. buy lunch for 10$ or 1,000$

see TAPPED - the movie for more details.
Danielle - from Wilmongton NC - is a fellow blogger who I met online. Her blog - It Starts With Me - is great! She is visiting her college roomate for the week in Corona Del Mar so she braught her family up for the evening to have dinner, and come on a cleanup with me.

Thank you to her, her husband Aaron, oldest son Chase, Claire (pictured above), and Henri for joining me on the beach last night.

As Claire picked these glasses up her father said, "Not everything you find out here is trash, huh?" to his daughter who then turned and very nicely modeled her new find for me.
As we were collecting, the topic of finding "loaded" dirty diapers at the beach came up. I mentioned how I had written finding a dirty diaper into the story I am working on well before I found my first diaper on the beach in real life.

The one pictured above is diaper number 3 or 4.

3 or 4 too many.

From R to L - Henri, Claire and Chase with another find. A perfectly good umbrella. They also found many sandtoys that they are hopefully putting to good use today, and a beach towel.

Garen and I tried to go to the beach today.

First - we tried to go to the local cafe, "Rose Cafe" on the boarder of Venice and Santa Monica. The parking lot was full.

Excuse me - first we tried to go to the beach pictured above - parking lot full, then the cafe and then to "Lily's" on Abbot Kinney because there is cheap validated parking behind it.

Well save yourself the favor of following our lead and DO NOT GO TO LILY"S RESTAURANT. 50$, a horrible soggy snadwich, and a ridiculously long wait while we watched everyone else eat later, we got back in the car to go to the beach in Venice.

FULL

The beach back in our hood

FULL.

I love our neighborhood, but Southern California in the summer is SO crowded that Garen and I are dreaming of the day when we can move to a more remote part of our beloved state coast. We finally gave up, and came home....but it sure feels good to be back on The Daily Ocean. Going out again tonight to collect some more trash from our local beach.

THE DAILY OCEAN ON SUMMER VACATION

THANK YOU FOR VISITING THE DAILY OCEAN.

I WILL BE ON VACATION FROM TODAY THE 30TH OF JUNE TO JULY 15TH.

PLEASE CHECK BACK AFTER THE 15TH FOR NEW POSTS ABOUT UPCOMING SUMMER BEACH CLEANUPS.

I HAVE A "RULE" FOR THE DAILY OCEAN THAT MY GOAL IS 365 NON-CONSECUTIVE DAYS FOR A FEW REASONS AND ONE IS THAT EVERYONE NEEDS A VACATION SOMETIMES! :D

ENJOY YOUR SUMMER AND BE BACK SOON!

Oceans 4ever Lake- to-Ocean Cleanup

Community Count Collection: Day 36

1.6 pounds

307.5 pounds total

The dynamic duo team of Alexa (daughter) and Cindy (mother) behind the tremendous

"Oceans 4ever" blog set up a joint cleanup with me.

Here's what we did. Last Sunday we went to our prospective bodies of water - me, Santa Monica beach, and them - their local lake in Indiana.

We then spent 20 minutes at sunset collecting trash off the shoreline. Here is what they have to say about their experience:

They found: 1.6 pounds in 20 minutes and only made it roughly 50 feet!

-one McD's coffee cup

-one Styrofoam cup

-countless cigarette butts

-two aluminum cans

-"TONS" of chip bags, small wrappers like Starburst and My Little Pony toy plastic wrappers, maybe from a Happy Meal?

-one paper McD's bag

-two shredded single use plastic bags

All of the items we found were very small in size, so we thought we'd have a paltry amount after 20.

We traveled a *very* short distance for the concentration of the clean-up! We dug things out of the shorleline, out of grasses, and bent down often as the shore drops off, so that might have taken a bit more time.

But it needs to be done and we want to do it much more often! We will be doing it every week. We met a man who camps in the adjacent campgrounds who says he does it often, too.

We've decided to do a monthly co-cleanup to highlight the fact that we are trashing more than just our coasts and oceans with single use plastics and disposable packaging. Thank you for the effort and support!! I look forward to more of these posts in the future!

They made a video of their experience too. Check it out below.

Day 129 - June 27, 2010

life guard tower 26 - Ocean Park, Santa Monica CA

trash collected for 20 minutes

3.8 pounds

510 pounds total

TODAY I PARTNERED WITH OCEANS 4EVER - THE (MOM) CINDY & (DAUGHTER) ALEXA TEAM - WHO WENT OUT TO THEIR LOCAL LAKE IN INDIANA FOR A 20 MINUTE CLEANUP. THEIR FINDINGS TO FOLLOW.

THEY WERE ALSO A PART OF THE OCEAN HERO AWARDS FROM OCEANA.

READ MORE ABOUT THEM HERE.

JOIN THEIR BAKE FOR THE OCEANS SAKE!

This is recyclable. If you define recycling as a closed loop, meaning that the material that you start with is recycled into the material that you end up with.

An aluminium can can become a can again.

A glass bottle can become a recycled glass bottle.

Paper can become recycled paper.

BUT THERE IS A MYTH ABOUT PLASTIC RECYCLING. PLASTIC GETS DOWN-CYCLED -

meaning that the plastic bottle or bag you start with at the beginning of the recycling loop takes chemicals and a lot of energy to make the plastic pliable enough to mold into a new plastic item.

This usually means an inferior plastic product, like single use plastic siding for houses which when it reaches the end of its life, is simply thrown away. But there is no away....
Annie Leonard who did, "The Story of Stuff," has now done the "Story of Bottled Water."

I think that I have mentioned this before. In this short documentary she goes to India to visit the mountain of plastic bottles that are just sitting there in landfills that have been shipped from the USA. Astounding and disturbing, please watch.
What does a water bottle have to do with the BP Oil Disaster? (I read in a comment on Beth Terry's site Fake Plastic Fish yesterday that a reader of hers refuses to call it a "spill". She's right, it is not a spill it is a "geyser" an environmental disaster of proportions never before seen on earth. Period. That was a horrible sentence to write.)

Anyway - plastic bottles are made from petroleum based plastics. Drink soda or water out of plastic bottles? Increase our dependence on oil. Allow more companies like BP to say they are just fulfilling the demand of the consumer......Sounds harsh? It isn't. The Cove director said (paraphrasing here) "Want to do something to help the Gulf? Don't ever drink out of a plastic water bottle again!"

Please read Beth Terry's informative post on WHY YOU CAN'T CLEAN UP THE PACIFIC GARBAGE PATCH. This is something I'll cover more about in future posts. She does it so well on her blog that I urge you to go there and inform yourself.

THANK YOU BETH!!

Day 128 - June 24

life guard tower 26 - Ocean Park, Santa Monica CA

trash collected for 20 minutes by 2 people

4 pounds - Sara

506.2 total

Community Count - Day 35

4.6 pounds - Garen

305.9 total

This was a child's life preserver that Garen found.

I want to make a shout out to the Shark Finatics at the Green Chimney School who were a part of the recent Ocean Hero contest from Oceana and whose teacher Robin Culler, I had the privilege to meet while she was in LA to accept her Ocean Hero Award on behalf of her and her students. They have adopted over 12 sharks, and pledge to educate people all over the world to protect what is becoming an increasingly risky future for the poor old shark.

Don't know what shark fining is?

Watch this.

But a warning that it is a gruesome practice of cutting off the sharks fins while still alive, and then chucking them overboard so that they drop to the bottom and drown. Hard to believe a practice like this exists, but it does...mostly to add the fins, which are high in mercury, to soup. Oh yeah, and the fins are tasteless......

Ahhhhh Nestle...maker of many things plastic. Mainly water bottles and other plastic packaging that ends up in...our oceans.

A snorkeling mask that I am sure is missed.

Hands Across the Sand is this Sat..

Want to show solidarity against offshore oil drilling?

Check out their website, find a Hands Across the Sand meeting place near you and join up against oil drilling. Wouldn't it be amazing if we make the goal of a continuous chain along the entire US coastline?? Could happen, come along.

June 20, 2010 International Surfing Day

INTERNATIONAL SURFING DAY, JUNE 20, 2010 W/ SURFRIDER

COMMUNITY COLLECTION DAY 34

life guard tower 26 - Ocean Park, Santa Monica CA

trash collected for 20 minutes by approx. 40 people

71.7 pounds

301.3 pounds total

Want to learn more about the Community Collection, and how you can participate? Go here.
It was appropriate that Surfrider picked tower 26 in Santa Monica to hold their International Surf Day festivities. I count 12 surfers in just this photograph, but they stretched far on either side as well.
TEAM MARINE of Santa Monica High showed up in force. Kou, all the way to the left in this picture, not only won a prize for collecting the most trash, but also for the most unusual piece of trash collected. A picture of the prize worthy object is included further down in this post.

BEN KAY - Marine Biologist, teacher and T.M. coach is holding up one of thousands of sand toys that will be stranded at the beach this summer. For more about this award winning eco-action group, go here!!
Kou's prize winning piece of trash - a black wax candle in the shape of a naked woman......yikes.

Some other contenders were:

a tent stake

guitar pick

barrette

roller skate wheel

blue plastic soccer marker

Here is the winner for largest piece of trash - folded foam insulation....

How did it get to the beach?

Most of the many wonderful Surfrider volunteers with a representative from Channel Islands Surfboards. Next to me, (I'm on the end at the right) was Mike Takahashi who organized the whole damn thing, good job Mike!
Aqua Surf School contacted Surfrider when they heard we were throwing this event and offered free boards, lessons and wet suits to the volunteers. How cool is that!?!

Here is their tent - find them online here.

A Koa Surfboard from Arbor. Arbor is all about sustainable and environmentally sound materials to make kick ass surfboards, snowboards and skateboards. They have a great shop in Venice. Check them out.
I wish I had gotten a better picture of the setup behind Arbor. They are a street ware company called ENDEMIC that started up last November and is partnering with Surfrider on a number of events this summer. Check them out!

All in all it was a great day to be out there on the beach. It doesn't matter how many pounds, or ounces, you collected off the beach. Added all together we got over 70 pounds off the sand, which is tremendous. We do what we can in the day that we're in. Thanks for being a part of I.S.D. this year.

Day 127, June 16 2010

life guard tower 26 - Ocean Park, Santa Monica CA

trash collected for 20 minutes

5.5 pounds

502.2 pounds total
When I walked onto the beach I saw the remnants of what must have been many Subway lunch boxes strewn across the sand. This was disturbing for many reasons.

1. There was so much trash!

2. The gulls were getting it out of our trash cans because they have no lids!

3. Why couldn't the people who had enjoyed their lunch deposited it in a can that wasn't full by walking oh say......50 feet or so up or down the beach?
Why we need to have lids on trash cans at the beach. Can't change a tiger's stripes. Gulls are scavengers.....
This cup got me thinking again about corporate responsibility in regards to their products end of life, or what lawmakers call - Extended Producer Responsibility.

Basically, the cost of disposing, or reclaiming their product sustainably is incorporated into the cost of making the product.

What a good idea!

Germany is ahead of the curve by years in implementing this practice.

Where is the USA?

BEHIND.
The people are back, and so is the trash. I enjoy seeing families have a day out at the beach. You can see the palpable difference in their faces and demeanor as the sun, waves and sand wash away their stressful life that waits for them maybe even as soon as they get to their cars. But my feelings are mixed about summertime and more people because plainly, there is a lot of trash left behind from their day in the sun.

What if everyone took a bag to the beach and picked up trash that wasn't their own when they left. OR just picked up their own?

Join me this Sunday with Surfrider WLAM Chapter for International Surfing Day's Big Beach Cleanup, there will be prizes and music and lots of fun stuff. COME ALONG

Also - check out Heal the Bay's weekend long event - SAVE OUR SURF

KISS MY COUNTRY helps the GULF

KissMyCountry Shows Their Love for the Gulf Restoration Network
State T-Shirts of Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi and Texas support Gulf Region Watchdog

KissMyCountry is proud to announce their support of the Gulf Restoration Network with the sale of t-shirts that show the wearer’s love for Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi and Texas. KissMyCountry will donate 10% of proceeds from the sale of each t-shirt via their web site and an equal donation from sales to wholesale customers.

“Thanks for your concern about the Gulf of Mexico and the impact of BP’s oil drilling disaster. The Gulf Restoration Network (GRN) would greatly appreciate being a recipient of your fundraising efforts.” says Briana Kerstein, Special Projects Coordinator, Gulf Restoration Network.

The Gulf Restoration Network (GRN) is a 15-year old environmental non-profit and the only environmental organization working Gulf-wide in Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, Texas and Florida. The GRN is committed to uniting and empowering people to protect and restore the natural resources of the Gulf Region for future generations. Campaigns focus on fishing, healthy waters, species at risk and sustainable practices to save the Gulf and wetlands. Check out their web site for information, videos, volunteer opportunities and how to donate and KissMyCountry’s blog post on the organization.

T-shirts come in organic cotton or v-neck, are printed on-demand, and are a great way to show your love for a place you love in the Gulf Region. Each state is created in KissMyCountry’s ‘Kiss’ design. KissMyCountry‘s goal is to connect with environmental profits in all 50 states and donate a portion of each t-shirt sold to a state-based group.

In addition to the Gulf Restoration Network, KissMyCountry is showing their support to the Loggerhead Marine Life Center in Florida, EarthShare New Jersey, and The Norbeck Society in South Dakota – the first 7 states toward their 50-state goal. Check out our web site for our group of states and countries. KissMyCountry is about saving the planet and enjoying the planet and saving the places we love. Thank you for showing your love in a KissMyCountry t-shirt and helping to save our planet!

info@kissmycountry.com
www.kissmycountry.com

Here is another savy post about the BP Oil Spill from K.M.C.

Jen Schumacher - Swimmer supporting RISE ABOVE PLASTICS

The Surfrider Chapter of South Orange County has gotten distance swimming star, Jen Schumacher to join Surfrider's RISE ABOVE PLASTICS campaign. After swimming though trash for many years - most of it plastic - Schumacher reached out to Surfrider to ask for assistance in raising awareness against the plastic trash plaguing our oceans. The S.O.C. chapter responded and last Sat. she swam around the Island of Manhattan to draw attention to our joint cause.

Jen Schumacher, a 24 year-old Cal State Fullerton graduate student competed as a solo swimmer in the Manhattan Island Marathon Swim, a current-assisted 28.5-mile race in New York with the goal to raise money and awareness for the “Rise Above Plastics” campaign of the Surfrider Foundation.

Last Saturday, June 12^th, she started at approximately 7:25 a.m with an expected completion time between 4:00 to 5:30 p.m. depending on conditions. A minimum of 8.5 hours in the water! She finished 4th!

She started and finished at South Cove, in Battery Park on the Hudson River. Swimmers navigated around the Battery then headed north up the East River, and swam counter-clockwise around Manhattan Island. They then swam north into the Harlem River, through Spuyten Duyvil, and then south down the Hudson River to the Battery.

Schumacher is a long time NOVA swimmer, and former coach who is currently working on her Masters degree in Kinesiology with an emphasis on Sport Psychology at California State University Fullerton. Schumacher swims and trains off the beaches of Orange County, California (see http://jenschumacher.com for details and GPS map). On August 14^th, 2009, Schumacher became the 165^th person to swim across the Catalina Channel, a 21-mile stretch between Doctor’s Cove on Catalina Island and Palos Verdes Peninsula, in a time of 9:02:48. Because she is passionate about protecting beaches and oceans, Schumacher will give a portion of each donation to the South OC Surfrider Foundation http://www.surfrider.org/southorangecounty/ to support the “Rise Above Plastics” campaign.

R.A.P. - The program seeks to reduce the amount of plastics making their way into our beach and marine environments though education and outreach efforts.

In California our RAP campaign is focused on passing monumental legislation, AB 1998, which bans single use plastic bags from grocery, convenience, pharmacies and liquor stores in 2012. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger will sign the bill into law if passed by the Senate this summer, setting the tone nationwide to rid this costly blight from our oceans and waterways.

Visit the program’s website, www.riseaboveplastics.org, to learn about how plastics impact our marine and coastal environments, as well as find information on how to take steps to reduce plastic “footprint.”

The Manhattan Island Marathon Swim (MIMS) is a counter-clockwise circumnavigation of the island of Manhattan, a 28.5-mile current-assisted race put on by NYC Swim. This international event attracts a large applicant pool, yet only 25 solo swimmers are accepted to race in this prestigious competition along with several 2, 4 and 6-person relay teams.

MIMS is a fundraiser specifically to help underprivileged children in the New York area get into swimming and to raise awareness about the need to clean up the waters of New York, and for the charity of each participant's choice.

MIMS is challenging in many unique ways. The majority of the swim is with the favor of the tide, however at several key points swimmers will be against the current at and must race to beat the tide. Swimmers face murky and at times smelly water and may run into random flotsam and jetsam. Because of this, swimmers are encouraged to have current tetanus and hepatitis vaccinations.

My uncle James Bayles also participated in the race. He is in his 50's and has a daughter who has suffered from Epilepsy for her entire life. He raised money for the Epilepsy Foundation of Conn. An email update from my uncle after the race said that is heart rate after he got out of the water was 100 bpm. He knows that he has had a "good race" - he has also done the Catalina swim - if when he gets out of the water, he is not out of breath. After an 8 to 9 hour swim, how many people in the world can say that? Probably most of the elite 25 who had the privilege to race last Sat.

Thank you to my uncle and to Jen Schumacher for standing up for what they believe in by competing in an extraordinary, and difficult sport.