From War to Love: ILACSD Evolves to Protect San Diego’s Environment

Today’s post comes from ILACSD’s Marketing Intern, Brian McComb!

I Love A Clean San Diego has deep roots, helping to make and keep San Diego clean for many a decade.  As we push ever closer to the 60th anniversary of our passionate organization, ILACSD takes a journey back in time to see how everything came about. Here’s a thoughtful look back at some of the events that have shaped our history…

Inception

To find our organization’s launch point, we turn the hands of time backwards all the way to the year 1954. Although the year might be most famous for the  Marilyn Monroe and Joe DiMaggio wedding or for the 30-minute documentary, “A Report on Senator Joseph McCarthy,” by newsman Edward Murrow, San Diego was beginning to make some history of its own.

Fueled by the aviation industry during WWII, growth in San Diego had surged during the two prior decades. As communities grew across much of the County, litter emerged as a large and pressing problem. The County and City responded with the creation of the “San Diego City and County War Against Litter Committee”, ILACSD’s first incarnation.

WAR

litter makes headlines

In 1960, the lead up to the official “War Against Litter Year” all started with a frustrated phone call…

On the afternoon of Wednesday September 28th, 1960, “John Cook phoned the Evening Tribune and reported that a trash can on Broadway near 7th Avenue was overflowing onto the sidewalk. Cook, of a jewelry store at 647 Broadway, said the can had been overflowing for several days.”

San Diego’s litter and subsequent frustration had hit critical mass, and outcry for a full on anti-litter campaign began to gain traction.

“War Against Litter Year”

At the end of November of that year county law officers had met with anti-litter committee officials to map a uniform litter code to bring about effective enforcement in combating the litter problem.

The San Diego Police department, the California Highway Patrol, and most of the 11 incorporated cities within the county were represented at the meeting.

By the end of the year a full-fledged “War Against Litter” campaign had been launched, and there were plans to kick off the new year right.  An official resolution proclaiming the week of January 14, 1961 as “War Against Litter Week” and the year of 1961 as “War Against Litter Year” had been passed and adopted by the Board of Supervisors of the County of San Diego.

The year would also saw the introduction of the organization’s first mascot, Pelican Pete, and the decade would see many more doctrines of war.

Promoting Plastic Bags?

Pelican Pete Says…

Ironically, starting in 1962 the War Against Litter Committee actually encouraged people to carry plastic ‘litter-bags’ in their cars.

At the time, paper litter was a far larger problem than the plastic litter we see today. Oh how the times have changed.

Everyone’s a Critic

Contrasting the public support for a litter war, on May 19th, 1963 there was an article published in the San Diego Union about the unsightly trash receptacles in Horton Plaza. The dean of USC’s architecture program is quoted singling out the green trash cans in the plaza as “a disgrace,” and an example of the “woeful condition of the heart of San Diego.”

everyone’s a critic

Apparently everyone’s a critic, as pointed out by Park Director Les Earnest, quoted in the article saying “trash barrels are always a problem… If we took them out, people would complain. If we leave them in, someone complains.”

Although you can’t please everyone all of the time, apparently we can please the President of the United States. In 1968 the War Against Litter Committee was commended by President Lyndon B. Johnson for partnerships and beautification efforts at the border in San Ysidro.

SLOBB & I Love A Clean San Diego

The 1970s saw the first glimmer of our current name. Although board members and staff had developed the new slogan “Stop Littering Our Bays and Beaches” (or SLOBB for short), the phrase “I Love A Clean San Diego” also started showing up in literature.

In 1970 the SLOBB campaign won numerous awards and even spawned a Miss SLOBB pageant. At the time, SLOBB was far more prevalent for the organization’s anti-litter campaign. However in 1980 the slogan “I Love A Clean San Diego” became incorporated into the organization’s new name, as the former “War Against Litter Committee” officially became “I Love A Clean San Diego County.”

Welcome to Modernity

Keeping America Beautiful

In 1989, ILACSDC merges with the San Diego Ecology Center, joining two leading environmental organizations together and giving rise to our current form. The rise in outreach and connectivity expanded rapidly, and later that year ILACSDC participated in their first ever Coastal Cleanup Day.

In 1995 ILACSDC received the Excellence in Solid Waste Education award from the Solid Waste Association of North America. Also during this year, the organization officially shortened its name from “I Love A Clean San Diego County” to “I Love A Clean San Diego” (ILACSD).

Blasting through the Millennium

In 2003 ILACSD takes a page out of the history books during Earth Month, organizing its first large-scale countywide cleanup. The resulting “Creek to Bay” cleanup was a resounding success with almost 2,000 volunteers removing 25,000 pounds of debris. The cleanup has since become an annual event across San Diego County.

I Love A Clean San Diego is awarded with a proclamation from the City of Chula Vista in 2007, recognizing its coordination of the annual Beautify Chula Vista Day. The event boasted close to 1,000 volunteers and was the most successful in history. As a Keep America Beautiful affiliate, ILACSD received the President’s Circle Recognition Award for achieving all standards of excellence as an affiliate.

WasteFreeSD.org

WastFreeSD.org

As ILACSD gets ever more connected, in 2009 they record nearly 21,000 requests for waste items made to the innovative new one-stop recycling resource, WasteFreeSD.org. The valuable resource diverts immeasurable waste from San Diego’s already over extended landfills, and prevents incidents of illegal dumping that contaminates our community.

2012

Coastal Cleanup Day

On September 15th of 2012,  I Love A Clean San Diego headed up the 28th annual Coastal Cleanup Day. I Love A Clean San Diego had been co-coordinating Coastal Cleanup Day in San Diego for 10 years, but this year took on the event as the sole coordinator making ILACSD the go-to organization for countywide cleanup events. This year’s Coastal Cleanup Day event had astounding turnouts, seeing over 7,200 volunteers collect over 121,000 lbs. of waste across 88 different cleanup sites in San Diego County.

Pressing On

I Love A Clean San Diego, through its many incarnations, has seen a lot of litter over the years. Through the hard work and dedication of its volunteers and staff, the organization has been able to gain the upper hand in many of the county’s most visible areas. We have matured and developed a lot since 1954, and our constant vigilance has allowed us to continue to expand our efforts, reaching all parts of San Diego County. The war is far from over however, and our fight against litter takes us further inland every year.

During the month of October, we set our sights southward towards our next biggest obstacle. South San Diego County seems to be a litter stronghold, a haven that harbors large and unpredictable cleanups. Although this could be considered the frontlines in our war against litter, this remains an area where volunteerism has dwindled in the past.  We are excited to once again partner with Wildcoast for October’s Tijuana River Action Month.

Become part of ILACSD’s rich history by volunteering at one of our multiple TRAM cleanups on October 6th and October 20th, or take part in Beautify Chula Vista Day on October 13th! Visit our website to find out more, and join is in our mission to keep San Diego beautiful!

DIY Cleanups Are Here!

Today’s post comes from ILACSD’s Community Events Coordinator, Lexi Ambrogi!

Have you ever found yourself at a park or beach and felt helpless in the battle against litter? Well, thanks to a new program from I Love A Clean San Diego, you can take action by grabbing a trash bag and glove from our new Do-It-Yourself cleanup receptacles!

This exciting pilot effort, an extension of our popular Adopt-A-Beach program, is the first of its kind in California. This week, ILACSD unveiled its custom-designed DIY cleanup receptacles, which are silver cylinders stocked with trash bags and gloves so that community members can clean up litter right when they see it. There are 3 receptacles in Mission Bay—at De Anza Cove, Playa Pacifica, and Crown Point Shores—and we hope to get more into the community soon. Special thanks to the California Coastal Commission for providing the funding to get this project off the ground!

Our friends at the San Diego Park and Recreation Department helped us to install these receptacles at popular barbecue and recreation gazebos. We often hear from volunteers who say they try to pick up after others while out in the community. This DIY program will make it easy and convenient for anyone to make a difference in preventing harmful litter from making its way to the Pacific Ocean.

We hope to see some of you taking action in Mission Bay soon!

We Bet You’ve Never Seen Trash Like This – Volunteers Needed!

Today’s post comes from ILACSD’s Outreach Intern, Taylor!

This was taken just a few weeks ago at one of the TRAM cleanup sites.

Here in the I Love A Clean San Diego office, we’re fresh off the excitement and success of Coastal Cleanup Day, but we’re also gearing up for our next series of events, the 3rd annual Tijuana River Action Month (TRAM) Cleanups. TRAM is a bi-national effort that takes place down near the border; there will be cleanups on both sides of the border during this month, how cool is that!

ILACSD, along with the Tijuana River Action Network (TRAN) and the help of many other invaluable partners, have two events scheduled during the month of October, one on October 6th at Effie May Trail and one on October 20th near Dairy Mart Road and Camino de la Plaza, both along the notoriously messy Tijuana Watershed. As usual, ILACSD will be bringing all the necessary supplies, but the BYOB (bring your own bucket) policy is still in full swing!

Although the TRAM cleanups aren’t our biggest events of the year, (it’s hard to beat 7,200 volunteers for Coastal Cleanup Day!) they are maybe the most important. The Tijuana Watershed is consistently filled with tons of trash, from plastic debris like food containers, bleach bottles, and plastic utensils, to the most consistently found item, tires.

You may be asking why October has been chosen for the honor of being christened Tijuana River Action Month and the answer is super simple, rain! TRAN wants to get these areas cleaned up before the winter rains come to San Diego and send all of the trash into our beautiful Pacific Ocean. If not for the hard work of ILACSD’s volunteers, all of those plastics, pieces of Styrofoam and tires would go straight into the ocean, our backyard and playground!

As you can see from the pictures taken just a few weeks ago at the October 20th site, this area desperately needs our help and our hands! Typically, volunteers are more hesitant to go down near the border to participate in a cleanup because of the distance and many other factors. Nevertheless, it’s because of these challenges that this area needs the most help. Last year at these two events, 63,476 pounds of trash and 351 tires were removed; if this much good was done last year with a little over 2,500 volunteers, think of all the good we could do this year if we had even more helping hands!

While cleaning up the Tijuana Watershed is the star of the day, that doesn’t mean it’s the only thing to do while down at the border on October 6th or the 20th. For example, on October 6th, the Audubon Society and REI will be leading nature walks through the different trails throughout Effie May Trail. Then on the 20th, ILACSD along with Think Blue, the City of Sand Diego’s storm water pollution prevention division, will be stenciling storm drains near our Dairy Mart Road site to let people know that anything this put down the drains here go straight into the ocean. Finally, as a reward to our volunteers after each TRAM event there will be a raffle of fabulous prizes! I hope you decide to come out to one of the TRAM events to give the Tijuana Watershed some much need TLC!

Click here to find more information and sign up for these cleanup events.

How Does ‘Text to Give’ Work Anyway?

Today’s post comes from ILACSD’s Development & Marketing Coordinator, Jessica Green!

Here at ILACSD we are always looking for new and innovative ways to reach more San Diegans and change the way they think about and treat the natural world around them. I think we all know that doing that isn’t free, and as a nonprofit organization we sometimes have to get creative in how we raise the money needed to provide environmental education, conduct countywide cleanups and run our one stop recycling resource WasteFreeSD.org.

Recently we launched our first ever Text to Give campaign where our supporters (that’s you!) can text the word CLEAN to 80888 and donate $10 to help us do those things. The first question most people ask us when they hear that is, “So how does this Text to Give thing work anyway?”

You send a text message. No, really. That’s the hardest thing you have to do! You text the keyword CLEAN to the number 80888 and you’ll receive a reply asking you to confirm that you would like to donate to ILACSD. Text back the word YES and you’re done! Ok, technically you have to send two text messages 🙂

The donation shows up on your next cell phone bill. No personal information is required, you’ll see the donation on your bill and you pay your bill just like you always do.

Your cell phone provider sends us your donation. After you pay your bill, your cell phone provider gathers all of the donations together and sends a check to ILACSD. Right now the program only works if you have Verizon, AT&T, Sprint or T-Mobile.

So what can we do with your donation? That is the million dollar question right? Or ten dollar question in this case 🙂

With your $10 donation we can mobilize 20 volunteers at a cleanup event in our community. On average, our volunteers pick up an amazing 15 pounds of trash and debris each. So, your one text message will remove 300 pounds of trash from San Diego’s beaches, bays, creeks, and canyons!

That is one really small action that leads to a really big impact.

Now, whip out your phone and send that text! Or if you’re reading this one your phone, stop now and send that text! And encourage your friends and family to do the same. Think about it like this, if you and two friends text CLEAN to 80888 you can remove almost 1,000 pounds of trash from the local environment and you don’t even have to get off of your couch!

If you have any questions about our text to give campaign, feel free to contact me at jgreen@cleansd.org.

Coastal Cleanup Day: Way More Than Your Average Beach Cleanup

Today’s post comes from ILACSD’s newest Outreach Intern, Taylor!

Hi! I’m Taylor Goelz and I’m the new Outreach Intern at I Love A Clean San Diego. I’m a junior Environmental Studies major and French minor at University of San Diego, right up the road from the beautiful Liberty Station location of ILACSD. I was super excited at the prospect of interning with ILACSD because I wanted to be able to make a real difference environmentally in the city of San Diego and I couldn’t have chosen a better place to intern for the semester!

ILACSD Staff & Interns setting up in Serra Mesa

I just started my internship last week and I was quickly thrown into Coastal Cleanup Day mode. Over the summer when I was being interviewed by the lovely Community Outreach Coordinator, Lexi Ambrogi, practically the first question she asked me was if I was free on September 15th for this event. It was intimidating enough being the new girl, first week on the job, but of course the biggest event that ILACSD holds all year was going to be the first event that I attended! Hearing my alarm go off at 5:30 last Saturday was rough, I’m not going to lie, but once I got to the site and started unloading the U-Haul full of stuff with the rest of the staff and interns, I started to get really excited for the day that lay ahead.

You never know what you’ll find at CCD, this “yarn forest” was quite a surprise!

Lexi had forewarned me that the Serra Mesa Community Center that was serving as the Kickoff Site this year had about 300 volunteers registered but nothing prepared me for the vast amount of people that started descending on the registration table that I was working starting at 8:30! ILACSD had encouraged people to BYOB (bring your own buckets) and gloves and I was pleasantly surprised at how many people showed up lugging big buckets!

The only unfortunate thing about Coastal Cleanup Day was the heat! Now I’m from Tucson, Arizona and typically I can handle heat, but Saturday was a whole different kind of hot, even for me! I was so happy that despite the triple digit temperatures volunteers still came out and did some amazing work! While the final totals are still coming in, even with the heat, we are estimating that Coastal Cleanup Day drew over 7,200 volunteers at the 88 cleanup sites around San Diego County. The numbers are in for the amount of trash, recyclables, green waste (mainly invasive species pulled from area parks and canyons) that ILACSD collected on Saturday and we collected 150,000 poundsof trash and debris!

Volunteers bringing back their haul!

Thank you to all of the amazing volunteers who took time out of their busy lives, and braved the heat, to make our community a cleaner, healthier place to live!

If you weren’t able to make it to Coastal Cleanup Day, or if you came out to volunteer and want to make your impact last even longer, you can text the word CLEAN to the number 80888 to donate $10 to I Love A Clean San Diego!

No personal information is required; the donation will simply show up on your next cell phone bill. Your single donation of $10 can help us remove an additional 300 pounds of trash from the local environment in the next year!

Exfoliating With What?! Why sloughing off skin could be hurting our environment.

Today’s post comes from ILACSD’s Director of Development and Marketing, Morgan Justice-Black!

Update 1/15/2013: Unilever announces it will phase out the use of plastic beads in its products! More info here.

We live in a dry, arid climate, which means dry skin during the summer months. Chances are that for many of us, the daily routine of tooth brushing and face washing might also include a little exfoliating. You know, scrubbing with gentle, natural, sweet smelling microbeads. The good news – no dead, dry skin here. The bad news – you could be scrubbing your face (and body) with plastic!

Photo Credit: Surfrider Foundation

This issue came to my attention thanks to our friends at Surfrider Foundation’s Rise Above Plastics campaign. They showed an image of the ingredient list on the back of a bottle of “natural daily scrub with microbeads” and I was shocked! The fourth ingredient… polyethylene! That’s right; those microbeads are actually polyethylene pieces of PLASTIC! I went home and checked out my favorite foot scrub and right there in front of my eyes was that word…polyethylene. Not only does it seem “unnatural” to rub your face and body with plastic, but what happens to these little plastic beads when they go down the sink or tub? Do they get filtered, captured and recycled? Absolutely not!

Those innocent looking microbeads end up flowing into local watersheds and out to the ocean! How do we know? Well, 5 Gyres, a reputable research organization focusing primarily on plastic pollution hinted at it in a recent blog post. Just one sample from their study this summer in the Great Lakes contained 600 plastic microbeads!

Now that you are in the know, don’t let the facial cleanser industry pull the wool over your eyes any longer. Check the list of ingredients on everything that you buy, and if you see an exfoliating product that contains polyethylene, don’t buy it!

Thanks to the Surfrider Foundation and 5 Gyres for helping to bring attention to this!

Why Should You Get Involved in Coastal Cleanup Day 2012?

Today’s post comes from ILACSD’s Development & Marketing Coordinator, Jessica Green!

There is still time to sign up to volunteer and be a part of San Diego’s biggest one day volunteer event dedicated to our local environment, but not much! Today is the last day to register to help out at one of 88 cleanup sites around San Diego County for Coastal Cleanup Day 2012.

Why should you get involved with Coastal Cleanup Day?

We’re reaching new communities.

This year we have 4 cleanup sites in communities that we’ve never reached before including Lindo Lake in Lakeside, and Flynn Springs Canyon Park in El Cajon. The local boating community is also pitching in at our two on the water cleanup sites at Sun Harbor Marina and Shelter Island. Volunteers are invited to bring their kayaks, canoes, etc. and will be given nets and special absorbent sheets that will allow them to collect trash in the water and along the hard to reach shore line, as well as absorb any gas or oil they find floating on the surface of the water.

We’re changing the way people think and act to protect the environment.

Engaging volunteers, especially children, in cleaning up their community gives them a greater sense of responsibility to protect it. Seeing all the trash and cigarette butts littering their favorite beach, bay, creek, or canyon will hopefully make them think twice before they litter themselves and to encourage those around them not to litter. Coastal Cleanup Day goes a step further than that though, our volunteers will count each and every piece of trash they pick up and report the totals back to us. This information will be tallied together with data from the other 53 California counties participating in Coastal Cleanup Day, as well as data from International Coastal Cleanup Day to be used to influence litter prevention legislation.

Local actions, global impact.

At the same time that we here in San Diego take on the task of cleaning up our local environment, hundreds of thousands of volunteers all over California, and all over the world, are doing the same in their communities as part of California Coastal Cleanup Day and International Coastal Cleanup Day.

Beach cleanups may be more fun, but inland sites need you more.

This was taken LAST WEEK at the Tijuana River – Dairy Mart Rd. site.

Even though the event is ‘Coastal’ Cleanup Day, we know that the majority of debris that ends up at the coast, started somewhere inland. San Diego’s vast watershed system is a virtual trash highway, shuttling litter and debris straight to the ocean through our creeks, rivers, and the storm water system. At our beach sites you’ll find plenty of trash, especially cigarette butts and tiny pieces of plastic and Styrofoam you probably never noticed were there. But at our inland sites is where you’ll find the big stuff, everything from plastic bottles and whole Styrofoam containers (which become those tiny pieces on the beach), to big things like car batteries, tires, and even the occasional chandelier. Check out the sites in green on our website who are still in desperate need of volunteers.

Can’t make it tomorrow? You can still help out.

And you don’t even have to get out of bed to do it! Grab your phone and text the word CLEAN to the number 80888 to donate $10 to I Love A Clean San Diego. Your gift will go straight to work cleaning up our community, and changing the behaviors that caused it to get dirty in the first place. Your one text message can help us remove 300 pounds of trash from your favorite beaches, bays, creeks, canyons, and open space areas!


Click here and register to volunteer!

CCD is Just Another Walk in the Park For Jason Allen

Today’s post comes from ILACSD’s Marketing Intern, Brian!

Park Ranger Jason Allen is no stranger to Coastal Cleanup Day. Though he bounces to a different site every year, Jason is in his seventh year as a CCD Site Captain. This year he is leading the charge at our Golden Hill – Juniper Canyon site.

Sure the scope of Coastal Cleanup Day is expansive, but you could almost say CCD is just another day in the life of Jason. As a Park Ranger for the Open Spaces Division of the City of San Diego’s Parks and Recreation Department, Jason and his coworkers manage 3,200 acres of open space canyons and parkland throughout the city limits.

In the realm of open spaces, CCD offers Jason an opportunity. As with other years, he’s able to choose cleanup sites that don’t normally have regular volunteer cleanups and are in need of some special attention. In fact, Jason makes sure to choose a different site each year in order to maximize his efforts.

Q:  What motivated you to volunteer with I Love A Clean San Diego?

A:  I have a passion for protecting, preserving and enhancing the natural open space canyons and parklands the city has to offer. Part of protecting, preserving and enhancing these sensitive unique open space areas are by keeping them clean of trash and debris. It only seemed natural to work with ILACSD to achieve this goal.

Q:  Why do you think events like Coastal Cleanup Day are important?

A:  Coastal Cleanup Day is important because it helps to educate people through volunteering. People learn firsthand that it’s not okay to just throw their trash on the street or into a storm drain. That trash can be deadly to wildlife, it pollutes the groundwater, and it’s just an ugly sight. If left untouched, the trash eventually finds its way through storm drains and into our sensitive open spaces and ocean. If we stop the trash at the inland sources, it will help keep San Diego and the ocean healthy and clean.

Q:  What is the strangest piece of trash you’ve found?

A:  A roller skating trophy. It was the old style skate with four wheels and all. I think it was from the 1970s. It must have been a cherished achievement to someone at some point.

There is still time to sign up and volunteer at Coastal Cleanup Day, but not much! The event is this Saturday, September 15th from 9am to noon. Go to www.cleanupday.org and find a Coastal Cleanup Site near you!

You can remove 300 pounds of trash with just one text.

You have the power to help restore our community and change people’s behaviors by supporting I Love A Clean San Diego.

Cleanup events, like this weekend’s Coastal Cleanup Day, are one way that we at ILACSD mobilize our community to preserve the San Diego way of life that we all know and love by picking up litter from some of our most treasured beaches, bays, rivers and parks. By engaging community members as volunteers to pick up litter, especially kids, we help change the way they think about protecting our local environment.

If you’ve been to one of our cleanups, you know the problem of trash in our environment is a big one. Now you can go a step further to help cleanup your local environment by texting the word CLEAN to the number 80888 to donate $10 to I Love A Clean San Diego!

Your $10 donation can remove 300 pounds of trash from your local community.

You don’t have to give any personal information to text and donate! The donation will show up on your next cell phone bill.

Text CLEAN to 80888 today!

 

Two For One Site Captains? ILACSD Loves a BOGO!

Today’s post comes from ILACSD’s Marketing Intern, Brian!

Co-captains Monica Fuentes and Kevin Johnston are teaming up for Coastal Cleanup Day on September 15th at the I Love A Clean San Diego media site to take on the hefty project of the Serra Mesa’s canyon lands.

Monica, Tire Queen of the Canyon Kingdom

Monica is no stranger to Ruffin Canyon, an area near her home that extends over 84 acres. Over the years she has been a site captain at many of its Creek to Bay and Coastal Cleanup Day sites, periodically setting up new cleanups within Serra Mesa.  In fact, Monica has volunteered so many times that she’s lost track. Though not even sure how many years it’s been, judging by the number of ILACSD shirts in her closet we’d have to say it’s been a lot!

Although Kevin is new to the Serra Mesa site, he’s also no stranger to Coastal Cleanup Day.  This will be his sixth year as a CCD site captain, the previous five being at Eugene Canyon in Normal Heights.  This year he is using his expertise to tackle Serra Mesa’s Library Canyon. These experienced canyon captains are a perfect pair to head up this site, and Monica is sure to use her site knowledge to guide them both to excellence.

Kevin brings the muscle

Monica became involved with ILACSD through her work with Friends of Ruffin Canyon, a local Serra Mesa group that fosters community participation in the protection of Ruffin Canyon. Although an avid hiker and gardener, it wasn’t until she became involved with Friends of Ruffin Canyon that she started learning about the native plants in and around the area.  Now she works hard with the group to preserve the native species while getting rid of invasive plants.

Kevin is a nature lover that has been drawn to the canyons ever since he moved to San Diego. He simply couldn’t pass up the opportunity to clean up his local canyon with the help of an organization and a  team of volunteers. Receiving the publicity, supplies and encouragement that CCD has to offer was definitely a bonus.

What motivated you to be a site captain with I Love A Clean San Diego?

Kevin:  I prefer to volunteer in the local canyon in the neighborhood I live in. I live in Serra Mesa now, and Library Canyon hasn’t had as much attention as Ruffin. It’s great to have these local nature escapes and interesting habitats in the urban environment.

Why do you think events like Coastal Cleanup Day are important?

Kevin:  ILACSD events have been essential in improving our water quality, the health of our natural urban ecosystems, and the overall aesthetics of our open space areas – encouraging nature-based recreation by the locals and giving sensitive species a place to thrive.

Monica:  Coastal Cleanup Day is a great event because it helps publicize the importance of cleanups in our inland area and prevents debris from ending up in the ocean. Although inland, Ruffin Canyon connects to the San Diego River.

What is the strangest piece of trash you’ve found at Coastal Cleanup Day?

Kevin:  We found a Mr. Potato Head toy in Eugene Canyon one year.

Monica:  The strangest piece of trash was an empty safe that had been pried open…

You can join Monica and Kevin’s team in Serra Mesa by clicking here and registering!

Not near Serra Mesa?  Go to www.cleanupday.org and find a Coastal Cleanup Site near you!