Tag: cleanup

Hundreds attend kickoff event at Dixon Lake

Here at I Love A Clean San Diego, we like to make it as easy as possible for people to volunteer with us. That’s why we love our Adopt-A-Beach and Adopt-A-Canyon programs—people can schedule beach or canyon cleanups any day of the year, and we provide all of the cleanup supplies for free.

Thanks to a grant from the Escondido Charitable Foundation, we are now able to bring this program to two sites in Escondido—Dixon Lake and Kit Carson Park. These are the first adoptable sites in inland North County, and we’re thrilled to have this program as an option for people who live far from the nearest adoptable beach.

This past weekend, we hosted a kickoff event to officially launch the program. We invited volunteers to join us at Dixon Lake in northeastern Escondido.

And we sure did kick off this program with a bang! A grand total of 402 volunteers collected 348 pounds of trash and recycling from around the lake and nearby Daley Ranch hiking trails. Here’s a recap of how the event unfolded.

Our volunteers listen attentively to the kickoff and safety talk from Lexi, our Development Manager. She covered topics like how trash travels through the community, why cleanups are important, and local recycling rules. She also talked about how to get involved with the newly launched Adopt-A-Canyon program in Escondido. Some of these volunteers have already signed up online and scheduled their next Escondido cleanups!

A team from the Division 37 East Key Club paused for a photo in front of scenic Dixon Lake. Throughout the morning, lake visitors thanked our volunteers for helping to keep the park clean and litter-free!

Miles of trails run along the lake, so our volunteers were able to spread out and cover a lot of ground. Here, a team from North Coast Church walked along one of the lake trails hunting for litter with our trash grabber and bucket in hand!

You never know what you’ll find at our cleanup events! This young volunteer wins our Most Unusual Item prize for finding this full bottle of sparkling cider. Here’s to you!

We weigh all of the trash and recycling collected at our cleanups as a way of measuring our impact and accomplishments. When volunteers use their own buckets instead of single-use plastic bags, we simply subtract the weight of the empty bucket to determine the weight of the trash. The buckets get emptied right into the dumpster—no single-use plastics needed!

A big thanks to this massive volunteer team from UCSD’s Upward Bound program. We love working with big groups like this one to get a lot accomplished at our events. These young students were a huge help!

Interested in adopting one of these sites? Visit www.AdoptSD.org to learn more and to schedule your own cleanups. We can provide a free educational presentation to kick off your first cleanup, and if you complete three cleanups over the course of a year, you can apply to have your group’s name posted on a sign on site.

We’ll be back at Dixon Lake, as well as at four other Escondido sites, for our big countywide event, the Creek to Bay Cleanup, on Saturday, April 23^rd from 9AM-12PM. Registration opens April 1st at CreektoBay.org!

Black Mtn. Ranch beautified after last year’s wildfires

On Saturday, December 5, I Love A Clean San Diego closed out its 2015 cleanups with a volunteer project and guided nature walk at Black Mountain Ranch Open Space in the 4S Ranch neighborhood. More than 200 volunteers from the community came out to beautify this natural area, which had been badly damaged by wildfires in 2014.

In just 3 hours, volunteers filled a 40-yard dumpster with things like furniture, exercise equipment, and metal drums—all while learning about the native and non-native plants that grow right in their backyards. Check out these photos from the event.

Safety first! Our team kicked off the event with a presentation on how trash can travel from this neighborhood out to the coast, local recycling rules, and safety reminders for the cleanup.

This girl scout knows the importance of picking up small pieces of litter, which animals often mistake for food.

Our Executive Director, Pauline Martinson, and long-serving board member, Bill Haines, joined forces with our volunteers to beautify the area.

Our Education Manager, Emily Nelson, and Clean Committee member, Andrew Heath, led a group on a nature walk of the area. The volunteers used field guides to help them identify native and non-native plants. They saw a coyote, too!

Farther down the trail, some young volunteers helped load bulky items into our truck, which we used to shuttle trash to the dumpster.

Tiny trash is important to pick up, but of course the big stuff matters, too! A team effort helped pull this old fridge out of the ravine.

Two of our board members, Vince Reardon and Michael Page, got their hands dirty alongside our Program Assistant, Vince Rivas, and volunteer Stan Nelson. This is their last haul of debris before calling it quits for the day.

Special thanks to the 4S Ranch-Del Sur Community Foundation for providing the funding to host this project and educate the community about caring for our environment!

Visit CleanSD.org for more information about upcoming 2016 events!

4S Del Sur Charitable Foundation 4S Ranch Black Mountain Ranch Open Space cleanup community service environmental education ILACSD inland pollution prevention volunteers

Preliminary CCD Results are in!

Today’s blog comes from our Community Program Coordinator and co-Coastal Cleanup Day mastermind, Moriah Saldaña! Over the last few month, Moriah has worked closely with our Community Program Manager, Lexi Ambrogi, to ensure that our second countywide cleanup of the year was a success. Read on to learn more about preliminary totals and view snapshots from around the county!

Vol in Action - Moonlight — Counting all those cigarette butts and bottle caps, although tedious, makes a huge impact worldwide!

The results are still coming in from Coastal Cleanup Day,
but one thing is for sure, Coastal Cleanup Day was an enormous hit! Whether our volunteers were at the beach picking up litter, removing graffiti in their local neighborhoods, or removing invasive plants from canyons, we know that San Diegans are now able to enjoy more than 100 clean outdoor spaces free of litter!

Coastal Cleanup Day in San Diego is part of a statewide and international cleanup effort to restore coastlines across the globe. The effort is coordinated statewide by the California Coastal Commission and internationally by The Ocean Conservancy. While international totals for 2015 are not available yet, in 2014, 560,000 volunteers in 91 countries picked up more than 16 million pounds of trash!

ICCD_2015_D40_21 — Volunteers at Sweetwater Marsh working together to do some heavy lifting.

Our staff woke up extra early on Saturday morning to lead more than 200 volunteers in beautification projects at Emerald Hills Park in Encanto. While the focus of the morning was on various planting and mulching projects, volunteers cleared out over 2,700 pounds of debris!

emerald hills park - Ani — Hotline Assistant, Ani spreading mulch with a smile!

As for the county as a whole, preliminary totals for Coastal Cleanup Day – San Diego indicate that we had over 7,500 volunteers cleaning up 105 local creeks, canyons, beaches and bays as part of this event! While the trash totals are still being compiled, we are expecting that more than 150,000 pounds of trash were removed from our county. On top of this, volunteers also beautified and restored the local environment through removing graffiti, removing invasive plants, building raised garden beds, and performing a variety of park maintenance projects.

Team Silvergate recovering items from water — Volunteers at Sun Harbor Marina didn’t stop at the sand.

Every year at this event, and at our other countywide cleanup, Creek to Bay in April, we see that cigarette butts and small plastic items are our most commonly found items. While unfortunately this isn’t that surprising, we are often stunned by some of the more unique pieces of litter that our volunteers find. Some of my favorites this year include a set of dentures in good shape, a full fish tank, a dragon statue and a MacBook computer.

teeth — Dentures found at Beacon’s Beach definitely made the top of the odds items list!

See more pictures from Coastal Cleanup Day and our other cleanups on Facebook and Instagram!

Looking to join us at our next event? We have a quite a few volunteer opportunities coming up. Click here for more information on how to get involved!

#CCDinSD cleanup Coastal Cleanup Day community service international invasive removal native landscape san diego service projects volunteers

Meet Stew: a surfer and site captain

Each year, as I Love A Clean San Diego ramps up for the largest cleanup of the year, Coastal Cleanup Day, we like to highlight site captains who go above and beyond. We recently sat down with one of our newest site captains, Stew Aadnes from Encinitas, to learn about why he loves a clean San Diego! Read on to learn more about how Stew got involved and how you can sign up to clean up either at his site or one of our 100+ sites near you. During the week, you’ll find Stew out in the field as a Site Manager with Geosyntec, one of ILACSD’s 2015 Coastal Cleanup Day sponsors, surveying storm drains and other infrastructure to minimize its impact on the local environment. On the weekends, like many San Diegans, you can find him catching some waves at Grandview or Beacon’s, two of his favorite breaks. Whether he is out preventing storm water pollution or enjoying the fruits of his labor surfing, the one thing he often finds is trash and lots of it.

Encinas Creek is right off Palomar Airport Rd. and easily overlooked. Thanks to this incredible team of volunteers the creek bed was restored.

Stew first got involved with ILACSD at a beach cleanup with his company. He soon realized that he wanted to do more. So he signed up to lead his very first cleanup at Encinas Creek in Carlsbad as a Creek to Bay site captain. If you’ve ever been to one of our beach cleanups you know that we find a lot of small pieces of plastic like straws, bottle caps, and abandoned beach toys. These items cause a lot of harm to wildlife, beach-goers, and surfers, like Stew. However, our inland cleanups are a different story with lots of big, heavy, toxic trash, that thankfully we’re take care of before making its way downstream. Just last spring at Creek to Bay, Stew reported pulling out whole couches, mattresses, shopping carts, and you name it, out of Encinas Creek. He even used rope to create a pulley system to get the heaviest stuff out of the creek bed. Three hours later, he had two dumpsters full of trash.

Girl Scouts lending a hand at the Encinas Creek – Creek to Bay cleanup site!

But that’s not all you’ll find at Stew’s site. When speaking with him I asked, “What is unique about your site?” and he shared that there is something for everyone; if you want to get your hands dirty and pull out tons of trash, there’s that, but there is still plenty to cleanup, even for the youngest volunteers. You may be thinking, “Well, what motivates someone to do volunteer to run a cleanup site?” Stew hopes that he can look back in 6 months and see that he helped preserve a piece of nature that was once hidden by trash. Are you looking for some motivation? Stew says, “Come out and get your hands dirty. Put on your worst pair of jeans and get after it.” If nothing else, there’s always Pizza Port to look forward to afterwards 🙂

Great team picture before heading out for well deserved pizza!

Whether you live in Carlsbad or another part of the county, we know you love your community. Save the date for Saturday, September 19^th and register at www.CleanupDay.org for a site that is meaningful to you. Whether it’s your favorite beach where you take the family or perhaps a piece of nature that otherwise would be overlooked, we hope you’ll join us. Connect and protect. Keeping San Diego clean, together. A special thank you goes out to Geosyntec for supporting San Diego’s largest cleanup of the year as a sponsor and encouraging their employees to get involved in their community. Thank you for investing in a clean San Diego!

carlsbad cleanup Coastal Cleanup Day Encinas Creek volunteering volunteers

The 7 Habits of Highly Eco-Friendly People

It’s easy to get bogged down by the flood of information about eco-friendly practices and what you should be doing, or not doing, to protect the environment. Our Environmental Educator, Emily put together her top 7 habits that keep her passion for environment alive and well. Read on if you’re looking to rejuvenate your love for the environment and remind yourself why we do what we do.

Remember your reusable bags. I know this is a Herculean task, but today is the day! As I tell myself frequently, “I can do hard things.” Channel your inner squirrel and stash bags everywhere – in your glove box, your purse, your top hat, your trunk, the stroller, the passenger’s side seat back pocket. Or, better yet, just get this song stuck in your head. I promise you’ll never forget again.
Set a new goal. Like any good relationship, you need to spice things up every now and again to keep your interest piqued. Go out for a nice dinner – and bring a reusable container for your leftovers. Or take a long walk on the beach – and collect any debris you find. For more ideas, check out this blog, which follows a woman’s adventures in zero waste.
Keep a worm bin under your kitchen sink. Check out Amanda’s blog post about how to get started. You’ll reduce the organic waste you produce, have a bounty of natural fertilizer, and be a shoe-in for the Most Unique Pet award in the office superlative contest. Best of all, you can finally use those creative worm names you’ve been saving up on – Worm Gretzky, The Notorious D.I.G., and Dirts Bentley, for all you country lovers.
Make it fun. Hold a household competition to see who can concoct the most creative way to conserve water. Litter your friends’ Facebook walls with environmental memes. Keep an eco-themed joke in your back pocket. (If you ever visit our office, I will gladly share one with you.) Enlist the help of Ryan Gosling. Humor yourself with creative green hashtags. My personal favorite: #brodoyoueventhrift
Share your passion. Fact: Most people don’t enjoy being lectured about how their habits are destroying our planet. Most people are, however, inclined to care about an issue when it’s important to someone they care about. Invite a friend to join you at a cleanup. Use your reusable produce bags with confidence, and be prepared to answer questions from friends and curious on-lookers. For my birthday, my sister-in-law gave me a purse made from recycled water bottles. She sought this out because she knows the three Rs are important to me. You may be surprised by how your actions and lifestyle encourage those around you.
Pick up litter wherever you go. Earthshattering, I know, but the benefits of picking up litter are far-reaching. When you pick up someone else’s trash, you’re more likely to be responsible with your own trash. Other people notice when you choose to pick up the wrapper that 37 other people previously walked past. On more than one occasion, I’ve been thanked by a stranger who saw me remove a piece of litter. Removing litter inland helps reduce the amount that ends up in the ocean – and our animals. Besides, litter is still a major pollutant we find worldwide, which means every little bit helps.
Remember why you started caring in the first place. Even for the most devoted of us, aiming for a zero waste lifestyle can easily become overwhelming. However, history has proven that small, consistent actions lead to great results. You started recycling/biking to work/buying in bulk/living green because something made you care. Remind yourself of that initial spark. For me, it’s remembering my experiences working with children outdoors, and seeing how a connection to nature helps them feel confident, make new friends, and find peace during the tumults of growing up. So tape a Rachel Carson quote to your mirror. Cover your fridge with magnets of the sea creatures you’re devoted to. Head out to where you can truly see the stars and be reminded that yes, this earth is beautiful and absolutely worth working for. And remember, you’re doing a great job; keep up the good work!

Pegasus — Environmental Educator, Emily, teaching campers about the wonders of the outdoors, nature, and how to protect it.

cleanup composting eco-friendly humor inspire litter Rachel Carson recycle reusable bags reuse zero waste

Brittany’s litter-free beach day guide

Today’s blog comes from our administrative assistant, Brittany! San Diego native, born and raised, Brittany it goes without saying that she loves our beaches and 4th of July. To get you jazzed for the long holiday weekend ahead, she has put together some of her favorite waste-free tips for a day at the beach!

Looking for something fun to do for the upcoming patriotic holiday? Why go anywhere else when you live in a city full of beautiful beaches! The 4^th of July has always been one of my favorite holiday’s to spend at any beach in San Diego. With so many people at our beaches, there is one thing that tends to be left behind and that’s trash. This 4^th of July, Clean Beach Coalition will have large trash and recycling bins located at Ocean Beach, Mission Beach, Mission Bay, and Pacific Beach to give every beachgoer a chance to continue to keep the beach sparkling clean! Last year alone, the CBC bins collected 96,860 lbs of trash and 2.8 MILLION pounds in the last 8 years. Pretty impressive, right? In order to prevent more trash from ending up on our beaches this holiday, I wanted to share some of my favorite things to pack in order to stay green while still rocking red, white, and blue!

CBC bins — Keep an eye out for our huge trash and recycling bins. They’ll be hard to miss so be sure to put them to good use!

The key to staying green is to pack up all your reusable items to prevent any trash! Here is my easy to follow step-by-step guide to a waste-free weekend!

For starters, instead of using a Styrofoam cooler, bring a more durable reusable cooler. Not only will it last you years, it prevents any Styrofoam pieces from ending up on our beaches and the Pacific Ocean where it will never biodegrade.
Plastic pieces are easily mistaken for food by marine animals causing serious health issues. Here are pieces mixed in with sea kelp recently found at a cleanup.
When packing up your goodies, try using reusable containers to transferring and reusable silverware! Here are a couple of my personal favorite snacks to bring to my Fourth of July beach festivities:

Fourth of July Rice Crispies Treats are a favorite of mine. Not only are they easy to make, but you can put them in a reusable container and be set to go! Check out the recipe here!

Fruit Kabobs! All you need are some wooden skewers, strawberries, bananas, and blueberries and you have an ecofriendly, patriotic snack!

plastic free treats — Fruit kabobs are the perfect plastic-free treat! Although the skewers will eventually go in the trash, wood will naturally biodegrade with time, unlike plastic.

3. Feeling thirsty? Fill up a reusable water bottle and bring it with you! Did you know American’s throw away 35 billion water bottles a year? It’s important to reduce bringing plastics to our beaches because once plastic enters the ocean, it is extremely difficult to clean up. Don’t have a reusable water bottle? Check out some of ILACSD’s reusable water bottles online!

patriotic water bottle — **Brittany always carries her reusable water bottle wherever she goes** whether it’s the beach, a park or work. Check out our merchandise to **get you own ILACSD gear to sport around town!**

4. Don’t have anything to pack up the rest of your goods? Use a tote bag! My favorite tote bag can be washed and reused over and over again. Do your best to not bring plastic bags to the beach, not only are they not recyclable but if blown into the ocean, marine mammals can accidentally mistake them for food.

Still not ready to end your beach time this weekend? Come show your patriotism in a new way with I Love A Clean San Diego on July 5^th for the Morning After Mess Cleanup. From 8-11am we will clean up the excess trash left behind on Mission Beach from the holiday celebrations. Plus, the first 400 volunteers will receive a free tee from REI!

Whether you decide to stay in San Diego this 4^th of July Weekend or travel elsewhere, please enjoy the scene, but keep it clean. Have a safe and wonderful 4^th of July!

4th of july beaches clean beach coalition cleanup ILACSD ILACSD gear independence day marine debris merchandise mission bay mission beach Morning after mess Ocean Beach Pacific Beach plastic bags plastic pollution recycle reduce reusables reuse styrofoam surfrider

WasteFreeSD tips for a weekend off the grid

Today’s blog comes from ILACSD’s Education Manager and outdoor enthusiast, Erika! In preparation for Memorial Day Weekend, one of the busiest times of the year for San Diego’s outdoor spaces, Erika has put together her top eco camping tips! Whether you’re going to the beach or the desert, you’ll be able to fully enjoy your holiday weekend!

Summer is approaching, and with that, you will most likely find me outside camping. One thing that really bothers me when I am in nature is seeing trash. To do my part, I try to camp, zero waste style. At first, I thought it would be difficult to ditch granola bars and instant coffee but realized I am much healthier and happier when making less waste. The most important thing is to plan ahead and be prepared.

Zero waste food - eco camping — Do some meal prep before your trip to save time and minimize waste!

When it comes to camping, most waste is generated with food. We have become so reliant on the convenience of instant meals but rarely think of the health and environmental implications. To combat this, follow these eco tips:

Stove: Between me and my friends, we have a Jet Boil and camping stove, making cooking a synch. Take it one step further: buy your gear used! Check out Geartrade.org or your local REI for great used deals!

Utensils: A lot of people bring disposables when camping and picnicking but it is incredibly easy to wash your dishes at the campground. To save on water, I bring a tub to contain that water. Remember to use biodegradable soap!

mesh bag - bulk — Reusable bags are great for produce and bulk food items like coffee and trail mix!

Snacks: Buy ahead of time and in bulk. When buying in bulk, I bring my reusable mesh produce bags to limit my plastic use. Recently, I made a bunch of these bags with different materials and sizes. These bags also make light weight snack bags, when hiking, so I don’t need to use resealable (Ziploc) bags. Click here for instructions to make your own! If sewing isn’t your thing, you can buy them here.

Coffee: Yes, this is a whole separate line…you can buy coffee in bulk, bringing your own produce bag and use a French Press. Another option is getting instant coffee that comes in a glass jar and you can reuse the jar!

Other beverages: Either grab your growler and head to the local brewery or go for cans in a box. Saint Archer and Ballast Point, both sell 6 packs in cardboard boxes, which you can use for a fire starter.

Water: Invest in a reusable water container – they have any size, and with any material – glass, stainless steel, plastic – you name it!

Ice: I tend to shy away from packing items that need ice, so I don’t find this too big of a problem. If you want a cold one, though, use reusable ice packs – you can even make yourself!

Love campfires? Check out these DIY fire starters using toilet paper rolls and dryer lint!

Cleanup: Most people use paper towels, which you can burn in the fire. I gravitate toward bandanas and reusable kitchen towels.

When camping, I have found that I typically use a couple of trash bags, primarily for food scraps and recycling cans. Other than that, I am waste free! Obviously, I am a little more extreme; however, with planning ahead, we can all make a difference in our environment!

If you are more of the staycation type, and plan to hit the beach over this holiday weekend, be sure to keep an eye out for our Clean Beach Coalition bins! Millions of people will visit San Diego’s beaches to celebrate Memorial Day Weekend. To ensure that everyone has a way to conveniently dispose of trash, we place temporary trash and recycling bins throughout Mission Bay, Mission Beach, Ocean Beach and Pacific Beach. The bins will also be out over the 4^th of July and Labor Day.

And if you’d like to volunteer with us after the holiday weekend to pick up any litter that didn’t make its way into the trash can, we’ll be out at Tamarack State Beach in Carlsbad the Tuesday after Memorial Day. To sign up, click here.

beach bulk camping camping planning carlsbad clean beach coalition cleanup eco tips meal planning memorial day weekend nature volunteer waste free zero waste

Creek2Bay hits home for ILACSD staff

Today’s blog comes from Annie, our new Hotline Assistant! She joined the ILACSD team in February and now that she has settled into her new role, we’d like to officially introduce her to all of you! Read on to learn more about Annie and find out what made her first Creek to Bay Cleanup so meaningful.

First and foremost, I would like to introduce myself, my name is Anais “Annie” Rodriguez. I have been with the ILACSD team for a couple months as the newest Hotline Assistant. I assist hotline callers with their recycling questions and help maintain the County of San Diego’s Recycling and Household Hazardous Waste Database, www.WasteFreeSD.org. Before joining ILACSD, I graduated from Humboldt State University with a degree in Environmental Science with an emphasis in Environmental Policy.

As a new team member at ILACSD, the Creek to Bay Cleanup was a completely new experience for me. I was eager to spend time with volunteers and to clean up my community. This year, the Creek to Bay media site was at Southcrest Community Park so this event really hit home for me, since I grew up a few blocks from the park and the areas we cleaned up.

The day started a bit gloomy but cleared up right before the cleanup kick-off, perfect timing! Volunteers at the site were ready to get to work right after registering. I helped volunteers sign up for service projects and handed out supplies.

InvasiveSpeciesRemoval — Lots of large items and invasive plants were found in the creek bed but with the help of our amazing volunteers we removed a lot of it!

EmilyAnais — Emily, Environmental Educator and Annie, strike a pose while sorting trash collected at our Southcrest cleanup site!

When registration was over I sorted out trash in the dumpster with other ILACSD staff. While sorting we found: toilet seats, car seats, metal frames, cans, and bottles. We went ahead and removed all recyclable items and placed them in the correct bin so unnecessary items didn’t end up in the landfill. We also received a few big items like a kitchen sink, a bed, and 3 shopping carts. Unfortunately, many of the big items were found in the creek bed, but with the help of our amazing volunteers we were able to remove it! I immediately saw the aesthetic difference of the creek and reflected on the importance of proper disposal of trash and recycling. One volunteer really stood out to me because he expressed such excitement about what we were doing there and how he is eager to make behavioral changes that will benefit his community.

Besides picking up trash, there were opportunities to participate in a few other service projects at Southcrest Park. Volunteers removed invasive plants from the creek bed, stenciled storm drain along the nearby streets, as well as painted park benches and other areas to remove graffiti. The park was left looking as good as new!

SONY DSC — We’re thankful for the ongoing support of County Supervisor Greg Cox! Here he is lending a hand by painting picnic tables to help beautify the park!

I had an amazing time getting to know our volunteers, working with the ILACSD team, and cleaning up my community! It was also so inspiring to see my nieces and their friends get excited about cleaning up our community. It was also a great example of the importance of not littering! The whole experience left me feeling empowered and motivated; I can’t wait for the next clean-up!

But before we start talking about our next cleanup, we’d like to debut our preliminary totals for this year’s Creek to Bay Cleanup! Drum roll please……..

: left to right: Moriah, Community Program Coordinator; Natalie, Senior Director of Operations; Lexi, Community Program Manager.

We would like to thank all of our 5,700 volunteers who took the time to make their communities clean and ensuring that our local waterways stay free of trash and pollutants! Thanks to your help, we cleaned and beautified a record number of 106 outdoor spaces and successfully removed approximately 125,000 pounds of debris countywide!

We would like to also thank our event sponsors and partners for all the help and a special thanks to Lexi Ambrogi and Natalie Roberts for coordinating such an awesome event.

Be sure to save the date for our next countywide cleanup, Coastal Cleanup Day, happening Saturday, September 19^th, 2015! More information can be found at www.CleanupDay.org.

cleanup Coastal Cleanup Day countywide creek to bay southcrest

Did you resolve to volunteer in 2015? Join us for our 1st cleanup of the year!

Today’s blog comes from our Community Events Coordinator, Lexi! If you have volunteered at one of our cleanups there is a good chance you’ve listened in on one of her safety talks and witnessed her passion for the environment first-hand. Read on to learn more about why you should join her this Saturday, January 17th for one of our most unique cleanups of the year!

Looking to put a spin on your next beach cleanup? Help us comb through the sand at Torrey Pines State Beach on Saturday, January 17! This is the first of our 2015 Tsunami Sweepers Cleanups, a series of volunteer events with a goal of tracking debris from the 2011 earthquake and tsunami that struck the eastern coast of Japan.

When the tsunami waves hit coastal Japan in March of 2011, an estimated 5 million tons of debris washed out into the Pacific Ocean. Of the 5 million tons, the Japanese Government has approximated that 30 percent of it—1.5 million tons—was buoyant enough to travel out into the ocean via wind and water currents.

Over the next several years, Californians should expect to see an increased volume of debris washing ashore—and some of it has traveled very, very far to get here. Thankfully, NOAA (the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) anticipates no elevated level of radiation in any of these items that may have originated near the nuclear power plant in Fukushima.

Bits of polystyrene foam, commonly referred to as styrofoam. — Bits of polystyrene foam (commonly referred to as Styrofoam) never fully degrade and easily mix in with rocks and sand. This is harmful to marine life as they often mistake it for food.

Thanks to the California Coastal Commission, we will be providing volunteers with data cards at these cleanups so that they can search for and track possible debris from this disaster. What will this debris look like? Some expected items include construction debris like lumber or building materials, consumer debris with Japanese characters or text, fishing gear, and polystyrene foam (Styrofoam).

Think it’s easy to identify these items and trace them back to Japan? It may be more difficult than it sounds. Even if our volunteers find large volumes of polystyrene foam debris, it can be challenging—and maybe even impossible—to be able to track it back to Japan. After all, our volunteers find polystyrene foam litter at many of our other cleanups, too.

But we purposefully selected Torrey Pines State Beach as the location for this event. NOAA has estimated that any tsunami debris that does wash up this far south down the coast will hit Torrey Pines, based on water and wind current patterns.

The California Coastal Commission funded a round of these cleanups in 2013, and more than 5,400 volunteers hit beaches up and down the coast to hunt for tsunami debris. While it has been challenging to confirm that any of the items found originated in Japan, many suspicious items have been found, including building materials and lumber with joinery more common to Japan than to US construction.

Volunteers are still needed for this event. To get involved, contact Lexi Ambrogi at lambrogi@cleansd.org or 619-704-2778. Hope to see you there!

cleanup Fukushima litter NOAA polystyrene foam Torrey Pines State Beach tsunami

Tsunami Debris, Paint, and… Intestines? A Creek to Bay Site Captain Profile

The 12th annual Creek to Bay cleanup is coming up on April 26! We like to give our volunteers some background on the site captains who help lead the cleanup, as well as some facts about various sites at which they may volunteer. Today we profiled Wainwright Hester, a long-time C2B site captain and big advocate of cleaning up SD!

Wainwright Hester had been organizing cleanups at his work for years, often at Creek to Bay sites. One year a call went out for site captains and he thought he’d help out and give it a try. Seeing all of the trash that could have stayed in the area without all of the volunteers’ hard work made the whole experience well worth it. Wainwright thinks the C2B cleanup is really important for our local environment. So much debris collects in our waterways that, if not regularly cleaned out, it would cascade into a much bigger problem! If we can catch those containers with paint, oil, or whatever chemical is lurking inside of them, before they degrade enough to leak, we can keep a simple cleanup from turning into a major cleanup. Plus, the longer trash is in our waterways, the more it decays from one big piece into numerous smaller pieces and thus making it harder to completely remove.

This year, as he has in the past, Wainwright is captaining Torrey Pines State Park and, according to the California Coastal Commission, Torrey Pines is a prime site for Japanese tsunami debris to accumulate. Last year he didn’t find any obvious tsunami debris but volunteers could possibly find some this year. When asked what the weirdest object Wainwright found at a cleanup was, he replied, “I was at Ponto State Beach a few years ago and someone found animal intestines. Animal: at least that’s what we kept telling ourselves.” Hey, at least our cleanups are both beneficial AND keep you on your toes?

Volunteers of all ages, helping clean up Torrey Pines State Beach!

Wainwright’s favorite part of the Creek to Bay Cleanup is the volunteers. Since they are volunteering, they often have a volunteering attitude so they are willing to do whatever needs to be done to make his C2B site a success.

Any final words to encourage our wonderful ILACSD team to sign up and volunteer for C2B 2014, Wainwright? “I think that everyone should participate in at least one clean up in their lifetime because it would bring awareness to what actually happens when someone does not throw their trash into a trash can. It would be a real eye opener for people who think that litter is either not a problem or that nature alone can handle it.” We couldn’t put it better. Thanks for all your hard work, Wainwright, and we look forward to seeing you on the 26th!

Join Wainwright at Torrey Pines, or any of our other 90+ inland and coastal Creek to Bay cleanup locations: sign up today!

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