Day 179 - Dec. 15, 2010

lifeguard tower 26 - Ocean Park, Santa Monica CA

trash collected for for 20 min.

5.9 pounds collected

697.4 pounds total

Yesterday San Jose passed an ordinance to ban single use plastic bags! Marin is next on Jan. 4th. This is exciting news. The ban in San Jose is more extensive than others that have been adopted in the state. The ban goes into effect Jan. 1, 2012 and unlike the LA County unincorporated ban, this ban applies to all retailers without a short-term exemption for smaller grocers. Other municipalities considering a ban are Fremont, Sunnyvale, Santa Cruz, Santa Monica, Long Beach, Marin County and Santa Clara County. I'm smiling over here.
I can't get this video off of my mind that I watched earlier today of a Pygmy Sperm Whale that beached itself and was later saved by the Baltimore Aquarium after they removed several pieces of plastic wrappers, and bags from its stomach. The whale lived, and went on to be released. Well worth the watch!
Speaking about eating...the holidays are upon us. Check out this great website from The Blue Ocean Institute - Ocean Friendly Chefs, Green Chefs, Blue Ocean - for sustainable seafood restaurants in your area, sustainable seafood choices, and recipes. Another great tool from the folks at Carl Safina's organization. Here is a link to his interview on the Martha Stewart show that I've already posted, but what can I say? I heart Carl Safina.
I want to highlight one of The 5 Gyres Institutes partners, Pangea Explorations. I can't wait to join them to cross the South Pacific this spring. What am I talking about? At the top right side of The Daily Ocean is a link, "SPARE $5 FOR 5 GYRES" click on it and read more about how you can help fund our research.

Join an exceptional sailing expedition crossing an ocean in high-seas adventure and exploration. Pangaea Explorations is offering opportunities to join the sailing vessel Sea Dragon on unique voyages of discovery and understanding.

Sea Dragon is committed to a long-term project of marine conservation, exploration and education. From September to July 2011, Sea Dragon and her expedition team will conduct the next important phase of exploration. Traversing the Southern Atlantic between South America and Africa, and then onto the South Pacific she will span two of the world's great oceans. Read more about how you can reserve your crew position aboard the Sea Dragon.

Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get Better. It's not.

- The Lorax, Dr. Seuss

I love these birds.

Here's the latest from The Bag Monster Blog on LA's annual DAY WITHOUT A BAG. The tutorial was today in Alhambra, and tomorrow across Southern California there will be 25,000 free reusable bags handed out to the public. If you see a green Santa, that's most likely what he's up to. You know? I have never found a reusable bag on the beach before.

12/13/10 UPDATE 1 - 5 GYRES RESEARCH EXPEDITION

So much goes into a research expedition like the one that we are preparing for with The 5 Gyres Institute in the spring of 2011 that I thought I would put up periodic updates on The Daily Ocean for you to track our progress.

I will be blogging the heck out of our expedition that is planning to cross the South Pacific from Chile to Easter Island, and then on to Tahiti. THAT'S OVER 4,860 MILES OF OCEAN

We mapped our route on google earth the other morning. I was questioning my sanity after taking a good look at the distance we will cover.

I've included a CALL FOR SPONSORSHIP below that gives the pertinent information for sponsoring a trawl which collects plankton specimens, plastic micro-pollutants, and more.

This is an exciting time to be involved in this critical research. Please leave me a comment, or email me if you would like more information.

thedailyocean@yahoo.com

Garen and I for The 5 Gyres institute this summer at the Venice Eco Fest

Garen will be collaborating with Dr. Rebecca Shipe from UCLA who is a leading expert in the field of plankton biology. They got together this morning to take water samples off of the Santa Monica Pier to make sure that Garen is up to speed on the equipment she is generous enough to lend us.

Day 178 - Dec. 12, 2010

lifeguard tower 26 - Ocean Park, Santa Monica CA

trash collected for 20 minutes

1.5 pounds

691.5 pounds total

Community Count Day 74 - Low Impact Betty

lifeguard tower 26 - Ocean Park, Santa Monica CA

trash collected for 20 minutes

.8 pounds

613.1 pounds total

Thank you Monica (the brains behind Betty) for trekking all the way from Silverlake to come and cleanup the beach!

Follow her on FB or Twitter and check out her impact-full blog - Low Impact Betty

I usually head out to the beach at sunset. Today was a rare snapshot of what the beach looks like before the end of the day.

"We probably won't find too much out here since the beach is raked around 7 a.m. and it's only 1:00," I said to Monica. But then I added, "I could be wrong."

There have been so many times that I have walked out onto the sand and gotten a first impression that it was "clean" only to find on closer inspection plenty to pick up off the sand.

Today was one of those days. The tally of pounds may not reflect this fact. All of the items we found were extremely lightweight. A plastic bag for example is only .25 ounces.

We talked about how most of what we were finding was made from plastics.

This is a Starbucks lid. Starbucks is starting a recycling campaign...how long has Starbucks been in business?

Here is a great piece that a Team Marine member sent around from Current TV called, "REDUCE YOUR FORKPRINT! THE CARBON FOOTPRINT OF EATING OUT"

"Americans toss out enough plastic spoons, knives, and forks each year to circle the equator 300 times."
Branding is powerful. I would bet that this product begins with a "V" even though the label has been rubbed clean.

In the Dec. 13 issue of the New Yorker, Arrowhead Water took out a glossy two page ad 9 pages into the issue that is chock full with environmental spin. Water bottle sales are dropping. Damage control is necessary for their industry. How much do you think an ad like that costs?

I would bet that a company who felt confident in their product would not be shelling out the cash for an ad like that unless they were sweating a little.

Let's keep turning up the heat.

Buy a Klean Kanteen or EcoUsable Bottle for a loved one this holiday season, and watch companies like Arrowhead spin as fast as they can.

You'll see a trend from the other ads taken out in the front of the New Yorker:

Goldman Sachs (who needs more image spin than these guys?)

Chrysler (we know this company is not doing so well...)

Rolex (who needs a watch when you have a cell phone?)

Ford (these guys also need to pump it up to save their b-hind)

Dec. 12th and 81 degrees in Santa Monica. I'm not complaining, but didn't we say goodbye to summer months ago?

Although there is plenty on our beaches for me to pick up, we do not have tens of thousands of cigarette butts like they do in North Carolina where my friend Danielle Richardet lives.

She won the Britta Filter For Good film contest this year for her 20 minute cigarette butt cleanup that started because of a Daily Ocean cleanup that she came on over the summer. Danielle was shocked that we didn't pick up one cig. butt. I'm glad that we didn't find any that day. I usually get a few, but NOTHING compared to what she finds.

Her first day out in August she collected over 340! In 20 minutes! Now she's giving her elected officials presentations on the toxicity of cigarette butts while being filmed for a Sundance Channel short film by award winning Director Destin Cretton.

Here's a piece written on Danielle in her local Wrightsville Beach paper - StarNews Online.

Like the Grinch after embracing the spirit of Christmas in Whoville - I think my heart swelled two sizes two big when I read it this morning!

The last thing we saw when we were leaving the beach.

12/3/10 - Driving Home

Did you know that the chasing arrows recycling symbol is unregulated?

Meaning: put one on my butt and no one can stop me. Doesn't mean my butt is recyclable.

I've been thinking about all the spin that is taken as truth about the recycling arrows. Watching the documentary BAG IT was the first time I got my eyes opened wide about how little actually gets recycled, and how most of our plastic waste gets shipped overseas to be burned in open air facilities, which in turn poisons the people working for pennies a day to deal with our garbage.

Author, Annie Leonard, has traveled to 40 countries and visited hundreds of factories where our plastic waste is dumped. According to Leonard, in just one year over 75 million pounds of U.S. plastic waste went to Hong Kong. She equates recycling to be the “opiate of the masses.” We all know that feeling of guilt-free release when we drop a plastic container into a recycling bin.

This re-melting also poisons the air, water, and soil of the foreign country who bought our dirty plastic. Because manufacturers want virgin plastic, or plastic nurdles to be used in the making of their packaging.
I got home from my trip last week and saw that my friend Harry who writes The Flotsam Diaries had been thinking about the same thing. He did such an amazing job of dispelling many of the recycling myths that I want him to get full credit, and for you to go to his website right now and read his post, "The Downward Spiral, or "The Triangle is a Lie."" Please.

Careful, you may not be able to close your eyes after this one.

"** The American Chemistry Council loves to talk up the value of plastic recycling. Look for their symbol on many recycling Web sites. Also look for them as sponsors of recycling initiatives nationwide. But their own fact sheets dispell the myth. 50+% of recycled #4 plastic was sold to developing nations in 2008. Many have much lower standards for their plastics and permit very contaminated plastics to be melted together and used in food packaging. Each grocery bag you recycle may be poisoning a family somewhere on the other side of the world." - The Flotsam Diaries

This post is a little light on the gritty truth for me, but may help you dispell some of the recycling myths further. It is a practicle giude to which numbers are recycled, into what, and how often.

"WHAT DO RECYCLING SYMBOLS ON PLASTICS MEAN" - THE DAILY GREEN

Day 177 - Dec. 4, 2010

life guard tower 26 - Ocean Park, Santa Monica CA

trash collected for 20 min.

1.2 pounds

690 pounds total
Emilia came out with me tonight. She is a senior at Harvard-Westlake High School who is getting ready to go to college next year, but found the time to come out with me to take some pictures for her Photography Class. I'm honored.
I've been thinking about the Gulf a lot lately. Maybe it has to with the fact that I saw "Gulf Shrimp" on the menu of our favorite restaurant Sunday night that rose a red flag in my head, or that I watched a clip of Carl Safina on the Martha Stewart show talking about the devastation to the fisheries in the Gulf? Here is an article from Current TV on the "Secret Ingredients of Corexit," which if you don't know is the dispersant that BP has sprayed millions of gallons of into the Gulf. (and is perhaps continuing to do so daily...yes even now)

I noticed a comment at the bottom of the article from a man who had bought a one way ticket to Redding CA from his Gulf Coast home and I thought again about how I would feel if I had to do the same? How hard would it be to have to leave our life behind here on the Santa Monica Bay? Answer: heartbreaking.

Forgive me for being self promoting but I have forgotten if I've mentioned that I am in the YAHOO! Year In Review as one of 2010's Most Inspirational Acts. Pretty tickled over this.

If you could do one thing to help Garen and I raise the last 27K it will take to go on the 5 Gyres Research expedition, it would be to post the link to this article on your FB page for us so that we can get the word out. Thank you!

WALLACE J NICHOLS NEEDS 100 BLUE ANGELS!

Help him have one true employer - THE OCEAN

"I'm looking for 100 Blue Angels to help me to continue the work I've been doing for the past two decades. If you appreciate the way I work, my accomplishments so far and the importance of the work ahead, please consider joining me."

Emilia's post about our night out at the beach

I created THE DAILY OCEAN NEWS with this fantastic application called paper.li which lets you post all of your favorite twitter feeds into an online "newspaper" and you don't even have to be on twitter to enjoy it.

TODAY'S TOP STORIES FROM:

Wallace J Nichols

Philipe Cousteau

Oceana

5 Gyres

Jim Moriarty, CEO Surfrider

Carl Safina

Heal The Bay

and some of my favorite Ocean Hero Civilians DianeN56, therightblue, and mstrlight

Day 176 - Dec. 3, 2010

life guard tower 26 - Ocean Park, Santa Monica CA

trash collected for 20 minutes

1.9 pounds

688.8 pounds total

Community Count Day - 73

Aaron Richardet from North Carolina visiting Santa Monica

trash collected for 20 minutes

1.1 pounds

612.3 pounds total

A special thanks to Aaron for coming out with me on the beach. He is the husband of my good friend Danielle who writes a fantastic blog called "It Starts With Me" and is responsible for OUR DAILY OCEAN - a 20 min. cigarette butt cleanup on her local Wrightsville Beach, NC. She also weighs the trash she finds for my Community Count. Just love it!

Sara Sikich from Heal the Bay signing the reprinted version of AB 1998 - the statewide ban on single use plastic bags sponsored by Heal the Bay. She's all smiles in Sacramento as we concluded a press conference to show support to the local municipalities pursuing bag bans, and reviving AB 1998 for the Dec. special session before the Governor leaves office. Fingers crossed!

I've been meaning to include this quote by Nobel Peace Prize Winner from 2004

- Waangari Maathai

"Passion begins with a burden and a split second moment when you understand something like never before.

That burden is on those who know. Those who don't are at peace. Those of us who do know get disturbed and are forced to take action."

My take on the AB 1998 press conference in Sacramento on 11/29

I got a chance to shake hands with Assemblywoman Julia Brownley who is the principle author of AB 1998 - CA statewide ban on single use plastic bags. I may have mentioned - oh just a few times - that she is from Santa Monica!
Terry Taminen of Seventh Generation Advisors introduced all the speakers at the press conference. His wife Leslie Taminen is a power house strategist, and super star who works tirelessly for legislation like AB 1998 that supports ocean health.
Sara Sikich of Heal the Bay gets to sign her name to the reprinted version of the bill. There were a lot of names on that board. I am sure that if felt good to add hers since Heal the Bay is the primary sponsor of the bill.

Thank you Heal the Bay for all of your hard work, and to Kirsten James of Heal the Bay who has lobbied for AB 1998 in Sacramento more times than she can remember, but could not come up that day.
The four star students from the South Orange County Surfrider Chapter who are leaders in their own high schools as part of the Surfrider Clubs that have sprung up in the last year are seen above joining forces with Environment California canvassers who came up in support of AB 1998.

A big thank you to Denise Erkeneff for mentoring the 9 high schools, and one middle school into adopting Surfrider Clubs at their schools deep in the O.C..

The students with Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi from the city of San Francisco who was:

First-in-the-Nation to write a ban on plastic bags in chain grocery stores and drug stores, which sparked similar legislation around the world from Oakland to Canada to Paris to Beijing.

Andy Keller - creator and owner of Chico Bags who gave a great speech about the benefits to CA's economy by fostering more green jobs. You can watch his speech in this post.
Ahhh - this next photograph is of a major lobbyist for the ACC who had so many of his facts wrong that it would take me all day to list them, but here are some of the highlights from his interview. Notice that he had some people in the background that were trying to get his attention.

HE SAID: "Bill would have succeeded in putting people out of work in CA."

HE LEFT OUT: That the largest bag manufacturer of single use bags is in South Carolina.

HE SAID: AB 1998 would "Raise grocery costs for families"

HE LEFT OUT: That if you remember your bag you don’t have to buy a paper bag for 5 cents. And the price of the already available paper and plastic "free" bags are already in your grocery bill right now. SO using a reusable bag saves you money.

HE SAID: "There’s a better way to deal with it (plastic bags) and that is through enhanced recycling and public education."

HE LEFT OUT: For years they have been “improving” recycling efforts and are up to less than 5%. That is only 950 million out of the 19 billion bags that CA uses in only one year! That leaves 18.05 billion bags in our oceans, rivers, landfills and streets…

HE SAID: "These bags are fully recyclable and people reuse them in their homes so to suggest that people use them once and dispose of them is factually incorrect."

HE LEFT OUT: Um..what about the CADMIUM in the red lettering on the bags that ends up in peoples homes that is a known carcinogen?

And one final message to State Senator Mimi Walters from the students in her district:

(Who also took $3,600 in donations from the ACC and voted against AB 1998)

"I feel like our senator Mimi Walters does not represent us. She does not represent what the future needs, just what the ACC wants. If she were here today I would ask her to please re-look at her wants and what other people have influenced her to do like the ACC and really look at what the people need and what the people want."

Senator Walters might want to rethink the price of listening to her constituents.

Student Voices from South Orange County Surfrider Clubs

The four students in the video above cared enough to spend their Thanksgiving weekend in the state capitol to let their elected officals know that they want to see the kind of change that would occur if we pass AB 1998. Here is what they had to say. I was very impressed.

The four students that schlepped up to Sacramento go to sign the reprinted version of AB 1998

Have you seen a bag monster before? Well, check it out. They are pretty scary! Not the girls, the bag monsters. Although these students are a force to be reckoned with in their own communities. I look forward to seeing how their movement to band together grows.

AB 1998 Sacramento Bag Ban Press Conference 11/29

Here are some of the stand out points that the Governor made during his speech at the press conference I was at last Monday:

"We (CA) is very proud that we are always trying to TERMINATE (oh yes, really) the dirty pollution that we have been talking about today."

Facts he mentioned that I was glad to hear him include:

CA uses 120,000 tons of plastic bags a year.

(I know that a plastic bag weighs only .25 OUNCES because I weighed one recently.)

Only about 5% gets recycled

(That means 950 million bags, leaving out of the 18.05 BILLION that we use. And most of the "recycled" bags are shipped overseas to Asia where they are burned in open air facilities to melt the plastic...more on this later)

It is estimates that 80% of all Marine Debris is plastic

(let's call it what it is shall we - Marine LITER, or Marine POLLUTION, or something else that doesn't make it sound natural. Debris could be sticks and leaves. Plastic is toxic.)

Julia Brownley is from Santa Monica (Where I live! A little Santa Monica pride over here...)

Her speech was great! You should take a minute to watch it.

She congratulated LA County for banning the bag and said that if, "LA County were a state, it would be the 8th largest one." Feeling good about the progress that we just made.

She also mentioned that she was in Paris recently and there were no plastic bags there. The list of other countries that have already implemented a bag ban, or tax is long and diverse.

But the majority of what I filmed where student voices. Next post with what they had to say coming right up!

Sacramento AB 1998 Press Conference - videos

My trip up to Sacramento was a quick one, but chock full of great inspirational speeches and information. I will do two posts on the Nov. 29 press conference hosted by Green Cities California and organized by the Clean Seas Coalition and Seventh Generation Advisers.

Part 1 - speeches from policy makers and business owners in support of AB 1998

The creator and owner of Chico Bags, Andy Keller gave a speech on the economic benefit of green jobs in CA and how passing AB 1998 - the CA statewide ban on single use plastic bags - would ensure economic growth.

Things that I learned from Andy's articulate speech:

1. Chico Bags is 1 of 20 reusable bag companies in CA

2. CA is home to more reusable bag companies than any other state in the country

"Groups like the ACC (American Chemistry Council) are spending millions to stop this movement. I think they would be elates if we were all running around as bag monsters....Make no mistake, when they (the ACC) talk about jobs they are not talking about green jobs, they are talking about a handful of bag manufacturers in CA...What they are not telling us is that for most of them, single use carry out bags are just a small section of their product line. And that many of these plastic bag manufacturers already make reusable bags."

I have two more speeches to add to this post, but I will do so later. We got our Christmas Tree tonight so I am sure you understand if I sign off after many frustrating minutes uploading YouTube videos to "deck the halls" with my husband, two dogs and cat. More soon!!

OUT OF TOWN FROM 11/28 - 12/2

First stop tomorrow is Sacramento where I will get to hang out with my lobby buddy Denis from the Surfrider So. O.C. chapter, which seems like a total kick ass operation.

I met her in Sacramento this year and lucky for me, she's up there again for another rally to Ban the Bag. We'll be attending the event for promoting momentum for the city-by-city Bag Ban at the State Capitol Building Steps on Monday morning.

I hope to get up there in time to do a Sacramento River cleanup.

Then it is off to the SF Bay area to see my friends, and back down through Santa Cruz in time for my husband's birthday on Thursday.

We tried to find a sustainable sushi restaurant to go to on his birthday in LA. NONE were found. Bummer. We need to take a cue from SF and Seattle.

More cleanups from my local beach will resume Friday when I meet with my friend Danielle's husband Aaron who is in town. She writes a great blog that I mention often called, It Starts With Me - check it out!

Day 175 - Thanksgiving Day 2010

Matador Beach, Malibu CA

trash collected for 20 min.

4.7 pounds collected

686.9 pounds total

Charlotte heading down to Matador Beach on Thanksgiving Day before our 2 pm meal

It felt right to be on the beach with some of my favorite people on the planet for Thanksgiving Day.

many fishermen were staked out on the beach with yards, upon yards of mono filament

Most of the trash that I found on the beach came from the people that were still near it. A Red Bull can near a fisherman casting into the surf. A plastic water bottle in front of a chair next to another man ready to fish. This made me wonder if it was my place to explain why we wanted to make sure we took our trash with us when we left the beach? I collected their trash, but said nothing which didn't help me let go of the resentment and judgement that was ringing through my head, "Why don't people know better?" And why don't they? And how do we tell them in a way that hits its mark and takes effect? Seriously, I'm asking...

Lisa's toe and a plastic bottle top

I thought this was kelp...

But it wasn't. It was a buried black, plastic tarp or bag that we couldn't entirely unearth. Garen and I dug, and dug as the tide came in, pushing sand right back on top of it.

But maybe this is why I am driving to Sacramento on Sunday for a Monday rally on the steps of the CA State Capitol Building to build momentum for the plastic bag ban. I see so many plastic bags that I have to get in the car. Do you live in Sacramento and want to join us? Leave me a comment and I will tell you the details.

Community Count Day 72 - November 23, 2010

Herbert and Charlotte after learning that we collected 38.2 pounds of trash in 20 min.

Community Collection Day 72 - Palos Verdes, CA

trash collected for 20 min.

by Lisa, Herbert, Charlotte, Garen and Sara

38.2 pounds

611.2 pounds total

thank you to our friends who collected trash with us, and especially to Herbert who took all of these photographs with his new itouch!

Garen walking down to one of his favorite tide pooling beaches in CA

This is my first post in a few days. I felt like I was on vacation since Monday afternoon when one of my oldest friends, Lisa arrived with her two kids who are pictured above. I didn't even turn on my computer until after noon today which made me remember why I love this time of year so much. Even with holiday madness, and family drama, we slow down a bit.

One of Garen's favorite beaches is out on the Palos Verde Peninsula and so we took our three guests there for an octopus hunt, and to admire other "beasties" as Garen would say.

The view from the cliff is stunning. Unspoiled coast awaits you, or does it?

A purple sea urchin

Garen, Lisa and Herbert all tasted fresh Uni (Japanese for sea urchin) after Garen dissected it on the spot for Herbert. He's a marine biologist, not just some random beach goer who likes to open up urchin shells. And Herbert is intensely curious about the workings of all things marine. They dissected a squid together about two years ago when they spent their first Thanksgiving out on Avery Island. Herbert was so impressed he made Garen a shirt that says:

SQUIDS HAVE 8 ARMS, 3 HEARTS, AND 2 TENTACLES AND YOU DON'T

view of a seemingly pristine beach

But as the time for the beach cleanup got closer, I was getting anxious. I knew what awaited us up toward the high tide line in the rocks, and it was going to be a bummer.

the tide pools below the rocks at low tide

We made our way up there as the clock struck 4 pm. At first it looks like there's lots of trash to collect, but on further inspection...

where all the plastics gather

there's just tons and tons of it. You stay hunched over for the entire 20 min. just picking bits of plastic-this-and-that as fast as you can. If you move a couple of rocks, there's always more.

our friends who were visiting couldn't believe that everything was made of plastic

If I was even more fanatical than I already am about beach trash, I would save all of the trash that I collect, and separate it out into brands. SO for example all of the 7/11 products I find would be put into a nice big pile, and shipped off to 7/11 with a note. Hmmm...

My fanatical idea leads me to something that I have been thinking about lately. Why does the burden fall on the consumer to educate themselves about the environmental impacts of products and foods and the many varied negative effects that these goods also have on human health? Why aren't these issues factored into the beginning of the product's life? Why can't I even trust the label organic? And for example, why when I look at this Right Guard tube of antiperspirant do I have to know that the packaging will be around for oh - a thousand years or so - and that it most likely contained a form of aluminum that was detrimental to the health of the user? I just want to buy deodorant that doesn't hurt myself, or the planet don't you?