Friday, September 18, 2009

Day 59 - Sept 18

THE STUDENTS FROM THE HEAL THE BAY/SURFRIDER CLUB AT SANTA MONICA HIGH SCHOOL STAGED A BAN THE PLASTIC BAG MARCH THROUGH SANTA MONICA TODAY. FIRST STOP WAS CITY HALL. CLICK HERE FOR PHOTOS
Lifeguard Tower 26 - Ocean Park, Santa Monica, CA
trash collected for 20 minutes
estimated pounds of trash collected - 1.3/.8 NO RECYCLABLES (Garen helped today, thanks!)
estimated pounds of trash to date - 304.1
Tomorrow is COASTAL CLEANUP DAY. Thousands of people will clean beaches and urban riverways leading to the ocean on both coasts and Hawaii. Will you join us? I am looking forward to seeing what it feels like to be with hundreds of people on my local city beaches between 9 - 12 on Sat. Sept. 19th sponsored by Heal the Bay.
I was recently contacted by Beverly, a reader of The Daily Ocean. This project has inspired her to do her own version when she goes on vacation to Rhode Island in a few weeks.

She has already called the local Surfrider chapter and composed a list of 6 different beaches to visit. She wants to see how much trash she finds on each kind of beach with varying numbers of beach goers. Beverly will share her findings with me and I will post them here as

THE FIRST PERSON TO TAKE ME UP ON THE COMMUNITY COUNT CHALLENGE.
You can do what Beverly is doing, and send me your photos, weight of trash collected and I will post it here. Thanks Beverly!! Her new website about saving the places you love will go live in a few weeks and I will mention it here with a link. Awesome!!
Our beach as ashtray. Ugh.
ARROWHEAD - I've been reading an article about FIJI water in the October issue of Mother Jones. A reader pointed it out to me and I have to say reading that, and watching the documentary FLOW has brought the issues of who is controlling the world's fresh water and the dangers coming from that to my attention. A main contributor to the dangers are bottled water companies and the environmental damage they cause by adding to the plastic garbage floating in our oceans after people throw their plastic water bottles away, the petroleum they use in making the bottles creating more carbon emissions that cause global warming and the human suffering caused by the companies diverting local water sources away from its people as it pumps their water out from under them causing drought and disease.

An excerpt from this article about Arrowhead - (owned by the Nestle company)

"Nestle is seeking a permit to pipe 65 million gallons a year from a spring in rural Colorado. When critics raised concerns about the effect of climate change on local water supplies, Nestle said it was "illogical" to base decisions on changes "many years in the future."
- HMMM the future is now.