Author: Chris Wieseler1

CCD Site Captain Barbara C. Anderson Is Officially Lake Murray’s Best Friend

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

Coastal clean up day 9-17-2011 097 crop — Barbara in action!

This week our Site Captain spotlight shines brightly on the lovely Barbara C. Anderson at our Lake Murray Coastal Cleanup Day site!

Barbara has been actively working to keep her part of San Diego County clean for over 18 years now. In 1994 she founded Friends of Lake Murray, a community-based nonprofit dedicated to engaging community members about the natural wonders of their shared public space and taking responsibility for keeping that area clean, beautiful and accessible to everyone.

Lake Murray is an important place for Barbara because of its beauty. It’s a beautiful public space where people can exercise and take in the nature that surrounds them. She volunteers her time to ensure that the area is clean, accessible and enjoyed by many – and she has inspired countless others to do the same.

Barbara understands first hand the value of volunteerism. The Friends of Lake Murray organization exists because it’s able to make a bigger impact than the existing lake staff can make on their own. Friends of Lake Murray coordinates beautification activities, clears out invasive species, and obtains much-needed items for the area such as picnic tables and doggie bags.

Barbara’s favorite part of organizing community cleanups is the participation of children and families. She ensures their participation through her outreach to schools, churches and scouts. Barbara loves seeing kids return to cleanups as teenagers. “My theory is if children participate in the cleanups they won’t throw trash on the ground.”

Q: What motivated you to be a Site Captain for Coastal Cleanup Day?

A: When we started as a non0profit in 1994, our group did monthly cleanups. We found dead and injured birds wrapped in fishing line, and there was plastic everything everywhere. It wasn’t possible for the lake staff to do their jobs and also try to maintain a clean environment. When I got the call from ILACSD about participating in a big cleanup day we jumped at the opportunity!

Q: Have you always been a site captain for one particular site?

A: The answers is yes! The lake is important, not only to me but to our whole community, as a place to exercise and absorb nature. Anyone can come out and bike, run, walk, or even just sit on a bench and zone out if they like. Lake Murray has easy access to all.

Q: What’s your favorite part of participating in Coastal Cleanup Day?

A: That’s easy. The Children! I will often hear children ask a grownup, “why do people throw trash on the ground? That’s awful!” It’s a perfect day for parents and kids to bond.

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

A: One reason to keep the environment clean is because people tend to throw trash in receptacles if the area is trash free. Peer pressure works too though. For example, we were the first to get doggie bag dispensers all over our lake road, and now many other places make them available as well.

You can join Barbara’s team at the Lake Murray site by clicking here and registering!

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

CCD Captain Ted Godshalk: Educator and Environmental Enthusiast Extraordinaire

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

Ted Godshalk isn’t just an all-star Site Captain who is devoting his time to Coastal Cleanup Day on September 15^th; he’s also an all-star teacher, educating students about the importance of environmental awareness! Now in his 7^th year as a CCD Site Captain, Ted’s veteran expertise is a valuable asset. National City is lucky to have such a devoted Site Captain!

Stemming from his former adult life spent as a National School District Classroom Teacher, and his current work as a part time teacher in the both the Sweetwater Union High School District and the Coronado Unified School District, Ted is no stranger to taking charge and organizing groups.

Not only an experienced educator, but also Natural Resource Management Certified, he is a great and valuable asset to his neighborhood, his site and his volunteers. Ted loves the idea that ILACSD offers the chance to rapidly improve small, formerly-neglected wetlands in the heart of a heavily urbanized area.

As an urban wetland, the Paradise Creek cleanup site offers a great perspective about the direct impact that cities have on local ecosystems. Let Ted tell you all about the importance of clean waterways and preserving wetlands as you help him on September 15th. “There is nothing better than seeing the huge amount of work that is accomplished in a single day!”

Q: What motivated you to be a Site Captain with I Love A Clean San Diego?

A: As a site captain I have always been at Paradise Creek Educational Park in National City. This site is important to me because it is in my neighborhood.

As a teacher, Paradise Creek is an excellent place to help students and community members learn about the importance of wetlands and the fragile habitat. Many children have their first exposure to environmental awareness and action through their days spent at Paradise Creek. This place is my “Everglades.”

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

A: With Coastal Cleanup Days, skilled organizers utilize the power of big numbers of people at sites where the impact of their good work is like a surgical strike on the enemies: trash and other debris. The Ocean and its animals love Coastal Cleanup Day volunteers!

Q: What is the strangest piece of trash you’ve seen at Coastal Cleanup Day?

A: One year, a volunteer found a vintage football helmet. That’s not as strange as other things I’ve heard of though.

You can join Ted’s team at the National City – Paradise Creek site by clicking here and registering!

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

Local Boaters Take to the Seas for Coastal Cleanup Day 2012

Adam.Hopps — Adam enjoying the ocean air on his home, the *Betty Jean*

The main focus of Coastal Cleanup Day is picking up trash on our beaches, along local creeks and rivers, and in local canyons. But what about the trash that’s already in the water? This year we’re attacking that water-logged trash as well. Adam Hopps joins us for his first Coastal Cleanup Day on Saturday, September 15th, as the volunteer Site Captain at our Shelter Island cleanup site.

Partnering with the Silver Gate Yacht Club, Adam hopes to get local boaters involved in cleaning up areas of our waterways that aren’t accessible by foot. Using grabbers and nets, these sea lovers will cleanup trash that is already floating in the water and even use tools to absorb oil that’s floating on top of the water. But enough from us, we’ll let Adam tell you more about it…

What motivated you to volunteer as a Site Captain for Coastal Cleanup Day?

I live on a sailboat in a marina on Shelter Island. Every day I witness the effects of litter and water pollution on our Bay. On a daily basis I see trash (usually plastic bottles and bags) floating on the surface of the water in and around in the marinas, in the Bay and out in the ocean. In the marinas it’s especially bad during low tide when trash has been brought in with the tide and becomes trapped in the shallow areas and in the sand – only accessible from a water craft.

Coastal Cleanup Day is California’s largest volunteer event focused on the marine environment but up until this point boaters haven’t been extremely involved in this event. When I was approached by ILACSD to coordinate a joint land and on-the-water cleanup site, I was thrilled at the idea of engaging boaters to make a difference in our own backyards as well as expanding the reach and environmental impact of this Cleanup.

How long have you been volunteering with ILACSD?

This is my first event and I’m excited to be partnering with the Silver Gate Yacht Club who will host the meet up location.

Why is that site important to you?

Living on a boat in San Diego is a blessed life. We have a dynamic marine & aquatic community, a gorgeous Bay to sail in and beautiful weather year round. It’s really hard to see the Bay tarnished with trash and oil. Even though approximately 80% of marine debris comes from inland communities, many of it makes its way into the open water which beach cleanup volunteers simply cannot access. The boating community is a natural fit for Coastal Cleanup Day because we have access to those areas from our boats, dinghies, kayaks and docks. Also, for the first time, we’re supplying on-the-water volunteers with oil absorbent sheets to use on surface level oil slicks.

We’re immensely lucky to have a magnificent natural resource like the San Diego Bay to call home and need to do our part to conserve and protect it.

What are you most looking forward to at Coastal Cleanup Day?

I’m looking forward to seeing a bunch of great people come together for a common goal. I think it’s inspiring. Also, it wouldn’t be a boater event if it wasn’t followed by a dock party!

Why do you think events like Coastal Cleanup Day are important to keeping San Diego healthy and clean?

Well, not only are tons of trash and debris collected and removed from our greatest natural areas, but the people involved become more and more aware of the harmful effects of litter and pollution and band together to make a difference. Volunteers tend to get their own families and friends involved which is why this event seems to grow every year!

What is the strangest piece of trash you’ve found out on the water?

I can’t speak for CCD, but we’ll pull trash out of the water when we’re sailing in the ocean and we’ve found half a dozen birthday helium balloons over the years.

Have you registered to volunteer at Coastal Cleanup Day yet?
Click here and sign up for any of the over 85 cleanup sites across
San Diego County!

Believe it or not, high school kids DO care about our environment!

With many students heading back to school this week and next, today’s post comes from former ILACSD Environmental Educator Alex Mullen-Ley who shares her thoughts on our High School Watershed Education program and what it’s like working with high schoolers!

Let’s be honest: high school kids have a bad reputation. When I tell people that I teach high school students about water pollution prevention, they often say something like, “I could never do that!” It’s easy to stereotype high school students as self-centered and unmotivated. In reality, the vast majority of these kids are open-minded, eager to learn, and willing to help out in their communities.

High School Programs Pic 1 — Local high school students at a recent cleanup

I Love A Clean San Diego’s high school education presentation focuses on the importance of clean water, and is designed to increase students’ knowledge of local watersheds and promote behaviors that prevent marine pollution from urban runoff. We identify important concepts such as the water cycle, food webs, and biomagnification and relate them to real life issues. We also review the latest information about the pacific garbage patch and help students identify everyday actions they can take to keep their local watershed healthy.

In 2011, ILACSD educated over 9100 students at 36 high schools around San Diego County through this program. It can be tedious talking about the same thing for five or six class periods, but the uniqueness of the students makes each day different. Nearly all of the 9^th through 12^th graders that I have talked to are genuinely interested in protecting the natural environment.

High School Programs Pic 2 — More than beach cleanups, students can get community service hours doing a variety of projects

Many high schools in San Diego County now actually require community service hours to graduate. So as the educators explain how trash ends up making its way into the ocean, we offer students the chance help at one of our upcoming cleanups. It’s a win-win situation; ILACSD has more volunteers to clean up the canyons and beaches and the students earn community service hours.

High School Programs Pic 3 — Students learn that small actions like recycling can have a big impact

The watershed education program isn’t the only way that ILACSD is trying to reach out to high school kids. We recently partnered with the City of San Diego’s Think Blue campaign to create a pilot project for high school students to become more active in preventing stormwater pollution. The program gives the students resources to design a project to increase awareness of the impacts from urban runoff on local waterways. At the end of the year we will have a celebration for participating school groups where they can show off their projects and meet other like-minded teens.

When I first realized that I was going to be teaching high school kids, I was nervous about it. I thought that they might be uninterested in the material or might even have a lack of respect for me. I was wrong to prejudge them. The students I’ve talked to as the Environmental Educator are smart, motivated, and make me feel optimistic about the future of San Diego.

environmental education san diego environment water pollution prevention watershed education

We’re Going BYOB at #CCD2012!

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

If you’ve seen any of our Coastal Cleanup Day posters around town, you may have noticed a request toward the bottom: “Reduce your use. Bring reusables. Buckets, work gloves, canteens.” Nothing makes us prouder of our volunteers than seeing you arrive to a cleanup with a bucket for trash, work gloves, and a reusable water bottle.

Oceanside Harbor Kids — Kids get in on the BYOB action in Oceanside, wearing their work gloves and using a reusable bag.

We’re fortunate enough to live in a part of the world where we have access to a myriad of resources and material goods in our daily lives. But with this privilege comes responsibility: just because we can use a bag once and throw it away doesn’t mean that we should. At all of our cleanups, we like to remind volunteers that our goal is to create as little waste as possible. And if you can’t bring your own reusable bucket, that’s why we’ll ask you to work in groups as you comb the beach picking up trash—sharing a trash bag with two other volunteers is an easy way to divert a lot of unnecessary plastic from heading to the landfill.

Picture_10_t620x349 — Volunteers use burlap & tarps instead of plastic trash bags.

A few of our sites for Coastal Cleanup Day are already a few steps ahead of us. At Borderfield State Park, site captain Danielle Litke uses buckets, large trash cans and small trucks to haul trash across her site. At 47th Street Canyon in City Heights, co-captains John Hanley and Brent Carter use burlap and tarps to drag invasive plants and debris over to their dumpster. And volunteers in search of a zero-waste site in North County can head to Beacon’s Beach, where Bob and Jan Rogers make sure that there will be no plastic bags in site!

We’ve even got a fun way for kids to participate: the second annual Bling Your Bucket contest! In an effort to encourage our younger volunteers to join our reusables effort, we are having a contest for the most “bling-ed out” bucket. It’s easy for kids get involved—just decorate your trash bucket, bring it with you to use at Coastal Cleanup Day, and send us a photo! You can win a great prize, and we might even feature you on our Coastal Cleanup Day website for a whole year.

We hope to see you out in your community for Coastal Cleanup Day on September 15. This year, let’s breathe some new life into the first two R’s of Reduce, Reuse, Recycle: bring your work gloves, bling your bucket, and join in our effort to move toward zero-waste!

CCD Site Captain Barbara Denny Goes Beyond Politics to Keep Coronado Clean

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

When Barbara Denny isn’t busy volunteering as a Site Captain for Coastal Cleanup Day on September 15^th, she moonlights as a Coronado City Councilwoman and is running for Mayor of Coronado this November! First elected to council in May of 2009, Barbara is a tireless advocate for keeping Coronado beaches clean, accessible, and safe for all the public to enjoy.

The only female non-partisan elected to office in the San Diego region, Barbara’s environmentally-friendly vision supersedes politics as she strives to improve the quality of life for pedestrians and cyclists in and around Coronado. Although we would love to have Barbara undivided loyalty as the Silver Strand State Beach site captain, I suppose we don’t mind sharing her with the lovely community of Coronado! “The beach is why I live in Coronado. It defines us as a beach community. It provides for our outstanding quality of life.”

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

A: It was a no-brainer for me. I was contacted by a volunteer coordinator and asked to participate as a Site Captain and I was pleased to say “yes.”

Q: What is your favorite part of participating in Coastal Cleanup Day?

A: I enjoy cleaning up Silver Strand State Beach with residents of the Coronado Cays and inviting residents to be my co-captains at the site. Furthermore I enjoy teaching Girl Scouts, Boy Scouts and families about the coastal environment of the Silver Strand.

Q: Why do you think events like this are important to keeping San Diego healthy and clean?

A: Coastal Cleanup Day increases community awareness, educates the public about our beach environment, and motivates people to get out and spend a morning with their neighbors at the beach.

You can join Barbra’s team at the Silver Strand State Beach site by clicking here and registering!

Not near Coronado? There are over 80 sites you can choose from all across San Diego County, go to www.cleanupday.org and find a Coastal Cleanup Day site near you.

It’s Not Too Late to Save Our Environment!

Whether you live Santee or Ocean Beach, Oceanside or Chula Vista, you can preserve the San Diego way of life we all know and love just by donating to I Love A Clean San Diego today!

For almost 60 years ILACSD has been leading the charge to protect our environment. Your donation will make an immediate difference right here in San Diego through:

Countywide Cleanup Events: We’re most known for our beach cleanups, but we actually coordinate events all over San Diego County because we know that 80% of trash in the ocean comes from inland sources.
Environmental Education: Picking up trash is definitely important, but we take it a step further and prevent litter before it happens by educating youth and adults about recycling, litter prevention, and how we are all connected through our watershed system.
Recycling Resources: We run the County’s only comprehensive recycling database an hotline, WasteFreeSD.org, providing a resource for residents to dispose of things in their house that shouldn’t go in the trash through our one stop recycling resource, which prevents them from being dumped illegally in your neighborhood.

As you can imagine, all of these things take time and resources, which in turn cost money. As a non-profit organization, we rely on donors like you to help us continue to provide these programs and reach out to new communities. Check out this great video by our staff that shows just a few of the things that you can help us with by donating today:

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tp5rVL-96Iw]

Your support is what allows us to continue to strive for a cleaner San Diego!

When you donate, in the field at the bottom of the form tell us your favorite place to enjoy nature and a clean environment here in San Diego! We’ll be creating a list of your favorite places and posting it on our website and our Facebook page.

SDG&E Smart Energy Solutions Campaign

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

Hey environmentally minded San Diego! Summer is in full swing and our beaches are once again packed with umbrellas, beach chairs, volleyballs, and tons of pale Americans looking to soak up the sun.

While the increased beach going makes for a great day of people watching, it also means an increase in trash left behind… trash that would undoubtedly end up in our beautiful ocean if it weren’t for the help of our amazing volunteers!

Cleanup Gear — Help us arm our volunteers!

Unfortunately, our volunteers’ time would be wasted if we weren’t able to provide the necessary tools and equipment to aid them in all their hard work. At every cleanup we participate in, ILACSD provides hundreds of volunteers with gloves, garbage bags, and trash grabbers!

This is where every little bit of cash flow helps, and now our friends at SDG&E have provided us with an AMAZING way for you to help us fundraise, and it doesn’t cost you a dime!

All month long, SDG&E will donate $50 to ILACSD for every subscriber that activates their free online My Account and then fills out a simple survey! Oh, did I mention that it’s FREE? Seriously, just activate your online My Account at sdge.com and follow the steps listed below. Once you’ve turned your SDG&E account paperless and signed up for Reduce Your Use alerts, simply fill out this 5 question survey and SDG&E will donate $50 to ILACSD on your behalf!

Our goal is to raise $5000 that ILACSD can use to continue expanding our environmental programs, but we need YOU to help us get it! Save paper, take a simple survey, and have SDG&E donate $50 today!

Help us keep San Diego beautiful!

It’s easy. Follow these simple steps to act today:

Click here and sign up for SDG&E’s “My Account”. You will need your SDG&E account number for this, but if you don’t know it you can simply email SmartEnergySolutions@semprautilities.com and they will help you get your account info in no time.

Go Paperless. Save paper and get your monthly statements and notifications sent directly to your email address! With this feature SDG&E will also notify you went payment is due.

Sign up for Reduce Your Use alerts. Go to the Earn Reduce Your Use Rewards section and to set up notifications. Help conserve energy on days when we may need to reduce our consumption and you may see a credit on your next bill from SDG&E!

Check out the new Energy Management Tool. Just click the My Energy tab and check out all the cool graphs and info about your energy usage!

Click here and complete the simple survey. Finish the quick survey and you’re DONE! SDG&E will donate $50 to I Love A Clean San Diego on your behalf!

So what are you waiting for? Stop reading this blog post and go have SDG&E donate $50 today!

Volunteers Collect Amazing Amount of Trash at a Beach Many Consider the Cleanest in SD

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

Last Saturday, I Love A Clean San Diego partnered with Jerome’s Furniture to host Jerome’s Cleanup at La Jolla Shores. We weren’t the only ones who thought to hit the beach early; even before 7AM, the parking lot was starting to fill up. But more people usually means more trash, so our volunteers would have plenty to keep them busy.

La Jolla Shores has the reputation of being one of the cleanest beaches in San Diego, but you’d never know it from the sight of our completed cleanup. Our 131 volunteers collected a grand total of 322 pounds of trash and 37 pounds of recyclables! Considering that much of the debris consisted of tiny scraps of plastic and paper, that’s a pretty impressive haul.

SONY DSC — Volunteers tracked the items they picked up to help us identify the biggest sources of debris

Some other cool statistics: our volunteers collected 1,527 pieces of plastic—and that’s not even including the 148 plastic bags that they picked up! 1,333 cigarette butts, 79 Band-Aids, 9 pieces of fireworks, and 40 pieces of glass later, our volunteers were able to relax on some of the awesome outdoor furniture that our friends at Jerome’s brought out for us.

This was my first cleanup as Community Events Coordinator, and I was excited to make it a good experience for everyone. Waking up before 5 to load the truck and pick up coffee from Starbucks wasn’t nearly as daunting—I’m an extreme morning person—as making sure that everything ran smoothly throughout the cleanup. I was thrilled to receive some good feedback from volunteers who were having a great time making a difference in their community. Cheerful volunteers, hundreds of pounds of trash off our beaches, and drinking coffee on the beach while sitting in Jerome’s furniture: not a bad way to spend a Saturday morning! I couldn’t have asked for anything more from my first event, and I want to thank everyone who came out to join us this weekend. You really did make a difference!

Though we aren’t hosting a cleanup in August, there’s still a way for you to get your volunteering fix for the month. We’re having a packing party at our office in Liberty Station throughout the month of August to prepare supplies for our countywide cleanup, Coastal Cleanup Day, and need volunteers. On September 15, ILACSD will coordinate more than 80 sites for Coastal Cleanup Day throughout San Diego County; that’s a lot of supplies to box up! If you’re interested in joining us, you can see a list of shifts here or email me at lambrogi@cleansd.org for details!

200 More Ways to Recycle in San Diego

Today’s post comes from ILACSD’s Hotline Assistant, Barbara Lopez!

This year I Love A Clean San Diego was able to add over 200 new centers to its one-stop recycling resource, WasteFreeSD.org. Included in these new additions were 107 e-waste collection events that allow residents to recycle their old electronics free of charge. What does that mean to you? It is now much easier for you to do the “green” thing and recycle.

Here are two of the more unique additions:

Waste to Waves

Although foam packaging is great for protecting your new electronics or appliances, it is not the easiest thing to recycle. Most waste haulers do not accept it in their curbside recycling program so many times it just ends up in the landfill. Luckily, Sustainable Surf’s Waste To Waves program collects packaging foam for recycling. The program has set up drop off locations at surf shops in California, including four in San Diego County (Hansen’s Surf Shop in Encinitas, K-5 Boardshop in Encinitas & Oceanside, and Shaper Studios in San Diego). Once the foam is collected from these surf shops, it is recycled and reprocessed for use in new products, such as recycled surf blanks.

Nike Reuse-A-Shoe

Many of us go through a pair, or two, of running shoes each year and are left wondering if there’s another way to dispose of them besides putting them in your trash can. Nike’s Reuse-A-Shoe program allows you to recycle your old athletic shoes by dropping them off at a participating Nike store. Collected shoes are then shipped to a recycling facility where they are sorted and processed into 3 raw materials: rubber, foam, and fabric fibers. This recycled material is used to create new athletic surfaces such as tracks or is used in new shoes and apparel. Nike collects about 1.5 million pairs of shoes every year and has collected 28 million pairs since 1990 through the program.

To learn about other unique recycling programs right here in San Diego, visit WasteFreeSD.org.