Local Boaters Take to the Seas for Coastal Cleanup Day 2012

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.

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 9th through 12th graders that I have talked to are genuinely interested in protecting the natural environment.

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.

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.

Volunteers Kicked Butts at the Morning After Mess Cleanup

Today’s post comes from ILACSD’s Community Events Intern, Gabe Grinstein.

Volunteers up bright and early to cleanup up the Morning After Mess!

Already this morning, 227 volunteers came out and joined I Love A Clean San Diego by Belmont Park in Mission Beach for the Morning After Mess cleanup. After having the day off yesterday to celebrate Independence Day, there was no better way to start off the day than with a beach cleanup to recover all the mess from yesterday’s festivities. It was an early start for me, getting up at 7 so I could get to Belmont Park by 8 to start setting up. To be honest, I started quite slow since I was very tired, but I woke up once people started to come by and sign up. The mood was great around the volunteers as there were many eager people ready to participate, and we had 94/9 radio right next to us playing music and advertising our organization and event on the radio.

Volunteers combed the beaches picking up cigarette butts, plastic bags, bottles, and more.

Time always flies by during events since it becomes so busy. I didn’t clean up any trash, but I weighed the trash and recycling bags, and added tally-marks to the big board to show how many cigarette butts, plastic bags, styrofoam pieces, and other items that we collected. By the end, we had marked 8,260 cigarette butts! This is an astonishing number since one cigarette butt can contaminate up to one gallon of water, so thankfully we picked them up before they reached the water.

Gabe keeping track of trash as it came in.

Volunteers also picked up 80 plastic bags, 134 styrofoam pieces, 345 pounds of trash, and 130 pounds of recyclables. People began to leave after a couple of hours and we started wrapping up around 11:30. The end is always my favorite part of the cleanups because I get to see all of the smiles of people when they turn their bags in. I can always see a sense of accomplishment on the faces of the volunteers. It is a great feeling knowing that we bettered the environment we live in, even if it wasn’t our mess.

Enjoy the Scene, But Keep It Clean!

Last year’s CBC trash bin.

I Love A Clean San Diego and other local nonprofits are at it again, hoping to make this summer the cleanest on record at some of our most popular beach destinations. As hundreds of thousands of people look to descend on local beaches this summer, I Love A Clean San Diego, FreePB,org, and Surfrider Foundation are working hard to make sure the beaches don’t bear the brunt of what thousands of people leave behind…trash! As part of the Clean Beach Coalition, our organizations work together to remind our community to be aware of the amount of trash they make, and also place temporary trash and recycling bins at the most popular beaches during popular holidays like the 4th of July.

Even with the added trash and recycling bins, inevitably some trash still ends up on the sand. If you’re sick of your favorite beach getting trashed, you can do something about it by volunteering at the Morning After Mess, scheduled for Thursday, July 5th at 9am! ILACSD will be hosting our cleanup site at Belmont Park in Mission Beach. Contact Jemma De Leon at jdeleon@cleansd.org or 619-704-2778 if you are interest in participating or have any event questions.

Our thanks go out to the sponsors who helped make this year’s campaign a reality!

Think Blue – City of San Diego Stormwater & Transporation Department
Pacific Beach Shore Club
Lahaina’s
Keep California Beautiful
Car2go
Vavi
ClifBar
BarWest
Paradise Point Resort & Spa.

Visit CleanBeachCoalition.org to learn more!

Stopping Cigarette Litter, One Butt at a Time

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

A few years ago, I Love A Clean San Diego heard about a program being launched by our national affiliate, Keep America Beautiful. The Cigarette Litter Prevention Program, although in its infancy, seemed like a great addition to our program arsenal. Anyone who has participated in one of our cleanups knows that cigarette butts are far and away the most common item picked up. It’s a painstaking process, bending over and picking them up one by one. While removing cigarette litter is good, preventing it is even better. So that’s what we set out to do.

In collaboration with the San Diego Chapter of the Surfrider Foundation, we are implementing three new CLPP programs this summer. The areas targeted for ash can installation include: Oceanside, North Park, and La Mesa. Prior to placing the ash cans, our volunteers do litter scans to find the areas that have the most cigarette litter. Then, ash cans are installed, and the cigarette litter collection begins. Typically, after about a month, volunteers will do a post installation litter scan to see how many butts still make it onto the ground. One lucky volunteer has the dubious task of counting each cigarette butt in all the ash cans to see how many are collected during the first few months. In some cases, we’ve been able to collect upwards of 2,500 butts in a single month!

We are excited to expand this already successful program. The three new areas we are reaching join Mission Beach, Pacific Beach, La Jolla and Point Loma where ash cans were installed in previous years. We estimate these ashcans have prevented over 30,000 cigarette butts from littering our local environment each year.

Kevin, winner of our Creek to Bay Volunteers in Action Photo Contest, shows just a handful of the butts picked up at one cleanup location.

Creek to Bay Cleanup 2012: The Final Totals!

On Saturday, April 28th, 2012, volunteers from across San Diego County joined together for I Love A Clean San Diego’s 10th Annual Creek to Bay Cleanup. After gathering information from all of our sites, we’re excited to officially announce our totals:

88 cleanup sites (29 coastal, 59 inland)

6,000 volunteers

185 miles of coastal and inland areas covered

150,000 pounds of trash

These numbers reflect approximately 600 MORE volunteers than last year, but they collected a few thousand pounds LESS in trash and debris than the previous year’s totals. What does this mean? Our cleanup events like Creek to Bay and the upcoming Coastal Cleanup Day, are effective and San Diego is becoming a cleaner city! Although we expanded into brand new (and much dirtier) sites, many of our volunteer Site Captains noted a decrease in pollution in their areas. In the upcoming years, we look forward to focusing on newer, in-need sites that haven’t received as much attention in the past.

Updated: Photo contest voting has ended. You can see our winner here!

Although the cleanup has ended, don’t forget to vote for your favorite picture from the event on our Facebook page for our Volunteers In Action Photo Contest! Volunteers sent in photos that they thought represented the spirit of the Creek to Bay Cleanup with hopes of winning a brand new Sony camera. We’ve narrowed the contest down to three finalists:

San Marcos Creek Cleanup Site
San Diego River, Fashion Valley Site
Vista Duck Pond Cleanup Site

Visit our Facebook page, view the Volunteers in Action photo album, and “like” your favorite picture to help them win. Tomorrow is the last day to vote!!

Maddy Blake: My Internship with I Love A Clean San Diego

Today’s post comes from ILACSD’s Marketing & Community Events Intern, Maddy Blake.

My name is Madelyn Blake and I am a senior at the University of San Diego. I’ll be graduating in May 2012 with a double major in Political Science and Philosophy, but my passion lies with environmental stewardship.

As I entered the final semester of my college career, I knew that I wanted to gain internship experience in the environmental field. I’ve always been passionate about these issues but after traveling the world, I realized the harmful impacts human actions have on the natural world around us. While researching environmental non-profit organizations, I stumbled upon I Love A Clean San Diego and knew I Imagewanted to be a part of their cause.

I began interning with ILACSD in February as an Outreach Intern. I attended cleanup events in order to help volunteers with checking in and weighing the bags of trash they returned to us at the end of the day. I loved being out in the sun with like-minded individuals and having the ability to walk around and help out wherever I could. The events are full of energy, fun and dedication towards cleaning the natural habitat. Aside from working at cleanup events, Outreach Interns also attend community festivals and fairs. These are my favorite events because I am able to talk about our organization, our cause and recommend ways for people to get involved. I love sharing what ILACSD is doing in the entirety of San Diego County and learning from other people what environmental issues affect them most often. It provides me with more insight to the unique issues found in our neighborhoods and helps me to understand why ILACSD works throughout the county.

My favorite event this year was in La Mesa at Mt. Helix Park. I Love A Clean San Diego had a booth with an “Emergency” themed game for children. The kids had to pick up different types of trash without letting the buzzer go off, and then place the items in the appropriate places: recycling, hazardous waste, compost or regular, old trash. I loved when the kids were excited about placing the items in the correct places and how they explained why they chose that particular place. I was surprised at how knowledgeable they were and sometimes, they even outshined their parents! It’s refreshing to know that these younger generations have such a great understanding of the environment and realize the impact they can make by doing the right thing.

Although I began interning through our community events department, I started working with the marketing department as well. I primarily worked on research projects in the beginning, but have recently moved on to social media-based projects. This includes writing press releases, blog posts, Facebook updates and Tweets. It’s been really fun because I can be creative and show mine and ILACSD’s Imagepersonality through all of these outlets. This position has given me the opportunity to see our influence on the community through social media and how it allows us to reach more people through Internet-based mediums.

Because of my internships with I Love A Clean San Diego, I’ve learned things both about myself and the environment. As for the latter, the most striking information that I’ve acquired is a knowledge of items that can and cannot be put in the recycling bin. For example, I’ve lived my entire life thinking that flimsy plastic bags are recyclable… they’re not. And I vow to stay far, far away from them. I think the coolest part about ILACSD is their recycling hotline, WasteFreeSD.org – it’s so easy and convenient to use. As for myself, I’ve learned that working for a non-profit isn’t always glamorous work, but it’s motivating because you’re working for a higher cause. The people in this office are friendly and really know their stuff. They’re qualified and experienced and just in general, wonderful people who want to make a difference. I thank them for this opportunity and look forward to volunteering with them in future years to come.

The ILACSD staff would like to thank Maddy for her hard work this semester and we wish her the best of luck in the exciting adventures she will embark on after graduation!

ILACSD Educators Get Kids Out of the Classroom and Into Nature

Today’s post comes from ILACSD’s Environmental Educator, Alex Mullen-Ley.

Students consult their field guides on a Nearby Nature walk.

It is easy to see that the staff members here at I Love A Clean San Diego are all fervent environmentalists.  I can confidently say that this enthusiasm is due in no small part to our unique childhood experiences in the great outdoors. Richard Louv, author of Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder, maintains that a child’s experience in nature is vital to his or her development.  Studies have shown that youth who spend time outside are happier, healthier, and are better at learning than those who spend most of their time indoors.  ILACSD’s Nearby Nature program allows our educators to help youth connect with nature by leading them on an outdoor walk through a natural area close to their school.  We recently had the opportunity to take elementary students from two very different schools out of the comfort of their classrooms and into the wild.

Our first group of students was from John Muir Elementary, a school with a rather serendipitous name located next to Tecolote Canyon Natural Park.  After a short set of instructions and a safety talk in the classroom, we led the students out the door and down into the canyon. It was cool and invigorating early in the morning, and I was amazed to hear that many students had never been to the canyon before, despite its proximity to the school.

We handed all of the students a field guide with colorful pictures of San Diego’s native species. They used the guides throughout the walk to identify the plants and animals that we saw during the short walk through the canyon.  The most exciting part of the adventure was when one group walked around a corner and saw a three-foot long snake lying across the middle of the trail not five feet away!  After everyone had calmed down, the students looked up the reptile in their naturalist guides and identified it as a harmless Gopher Snake. We all breathed a collective sigh of relief.

Back in the classroom, the students showed each other leaf rubbings that they had done and swapped stories about the different plants, animals and flowers that they had seen on the hike. Before we left, I asked my group if they were going to visit the canyon again with their parents.  A loud, “yeah!” evidenced their enthusiasm. The ILACSD Educators all left the school with satisfied smiles.

We drove all the way to James Dukes Elementary School in Ramona a week later. The school is in a comparatively rural location, but again I was surprised to hear that the majority of the students hadn’t yet explored the nearby greenbelt.

Students drew a picture of a yucca plant in their notebooks.

The kids had just learned about Kumeyaay culture, and were excited to tell us about how the Native American tribe had used elements from the surrounding environment to survive. The students became the teachers when they told us educators about how the Kumeyaay made sandals out of Yucca and Agave fibers, crafted pots out of clay, and ground up California Live Oak acorns to make most of their food.

Exhausted after the hike, the students collapsed in their chairs in the temperature-controlled classroom and filled out a short survey. The survey only had three questions: what the most interesting thing they saw on the hike was; one thing they learned; and what nature means to them. Their responses were all honest and heartening. Nature was described as awesome, special, wonderful, interesting, and in the words of one fourth grader, “calming. Any time I go into nature I feel safe.”

The Nearby Nature program is one of the most rewarding for us as educators. While we do enjoy teaching young students inside the classroom, it is extra satisfying to watch them get excited at seeing the native plants and animals in their neighborhoods.  The statistics do reveal that kids these days are missing out on the benefits of experiencing nature, but it pleases me to know that there are at least a few children in San Diego who have had the chance to explore a beautiful natural area in their neighborhood.

If you are a 3rd – 6th grade teacher in San Diego County who is interested in having your students participate in the Nearby Nature program next year, please contact our Education department at education@cleansd.org.

Kids Take A Stand in the Sand at Kids’ Ocean Day

Today’s post comes from ILACSD Environmental Educator, Alex Mullen-Ley.

Kids’ Ocean Day 2011 Aerial Art

It’s hard to imagine that there are children here in San Diego who have never been to the beach before. Many of us take for granted that when it gets hot outside, everyone heads to the coast. One of I Love A Clean San Diego’s upcoming educational programs is giving underserved youth the chance to visit the beach for the very first time.  

On June 7th, as part of the 19th annual Kids’ Ocean Day Adopt-A-Beach Cleanup, ILACSD is coordinating nearly 900 students from eight Title I schools to help clean up the beach and make a visual statement in the sand about their concern for the future of the oceans. This is the third year that ILACSD will be holding the event at Crown Point Shores, and the ninth year that we have acted as the regional coordinators. 

The annual event started in Los Angeles in 1994 by the Malibu Foundation for Environmental Education and the California Coastal Commission. The original goals of the program were to increase public awareness of ocean issues and to connect children to the marine environment.  Over the past 18 years, the event’s range has expanded to include 7 cities along the California coast. 

During the month of May, ILACSD’s educators will visit each school to give the students a presentation about the importance of minimizing our impact on the marine environment and to get them excited to participate in the aerial art project.  We will meet them again at the beach on June 7th.  At last year’s event we had almost 200 students attend who experienced the beach for the first time, and we expect to have a similar number this year.  The theme for this year’s Kids’ Ocean Day is “Defend the Sea.” We are keeping the aerial art design a secret for now, but we can say that it will be an exciting first in the program’s history!

We are still looking for adult volunteers to help with the event from 8:00am to 1:00pm. If you are interested in signing up to volunteer, please contact Jemma De Leon at jdeleon@cleansd.org.

5,800 Volunteers + 150,000 Pounds of Trash = a Cleaner San Diego

Today’s post comes from ILACSD’s Marketing Intern and USD student, Maddy Blake. Updated 5/3/2012 with new totals!

ILACSD’s Staff ready for the big day!

I Love A Clean San Diego celebrated its 10th annual Creek to Bay Cleanup this past Saturday, April 28th. An amazing 5,800 San Diegans joined together across the county to preserve and beautify their local environment. This year also marks the San Diego Girl Scouts’ 100th anniversary, over 1200 of scouts took part in the cleanup to show their commitment to the environment and witness the effects that pollution has on their communities.

Volunteers separated trash and recyclables.

Thanks to all of these fantastic volunteers, San Diego is a much cleaner county. In fact, more than 150,000 pounds of trash and debris were removed from local parks, canyons, creeks, bays and beaches in the span of just three hours! As in years past, cigarette butts and plastic bags were among the most common items found, but this year, some of the most interesting items our volunteers picked up were a rocking horse, a bowling pin and a five-gallon container of pickles.

Daisy scouts pitch in at Creek to Bay.

With a total of 88 cleanup sites, the most we’ve ever had for Creek to Bay, there was somewhere for everyone to go and something for everyone to do. This year, cleanup events were held at five brand new sites in communities we hadn’t reached yet:

  • Paradise Hills – 40 volunteers filled an entire roll-away dumpster of debris
  • Spring Valley – 49 volunteers collected over 260 pounds of debris
  • Santa Ysabel – 20 volunteers removed 200 pounds of debris
  • Banker’s Hill – 49 volunteers removed 250 pounds of debris
  • University Heights – 32 volunteers can boast removing 1,200 pounds of debris

You read that right, at the site known as Camelot Canyon (the area beside the 163 at the Vermont St. bridge in University Heights), volunteers picked up 1,200 pounds of debris in that three hour timeframe and unfortunately there is more work to be done in that area. The site was brought to our attention by local University Heights resident, Alison Whitney, who bikes past the canyon on her way to work everyday. With the help of CalTrans and ILACSD, Alison organized this cleanup to make this corner of her community a little more enjoyable for local residents. Click here to read Alison’s interview with KPBS.

Just a sample of some of the debris picked up.

While about 40% of this year’s cleanup sites were in coastal areas, cleaning up inland sites like Camelot Canyon ensures that the trash will not travel down the watershed system and end up in our waterways, bays and the ocean. Furthermore, by expanding into the five new sites, an additional 2,000 pounds of debris were removed from the environment! After ten years, I Love A Clean San Diego still dedicates itself to county-wide programs and expanding its reach even farther to preserve and ensure a healthier San Diego for everyone.

Volunteers painting over graffiti near Fashion Valley Mall.

Picking up trash is not the only activity our volunteers participated in – many sites included other beautification projects such as graffiti removal, mural painting, native planting, brush maintenance and other general park maintenance.

Don’t forget – if you joined us at Creek to Bay this year, remember to submit your favorite photo to ILACSD for our Sony Volunteers In Action photo contest! Photos are due on May 4, 2012, then the top 3 photos will be posted on our Facebook page, where our fans will vote for their favorite. The winner will be announced on May 18th! Click here for more details.

We want to thank ALL of the volunteers who took time out of their weekend to do more with their morning at the 10th Annual Creek to Bay Cleanup! We’d like to give a special thank you to the following volunteer groups who came out to show their love for a clean San Diego:

  • Local members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Mormon Helping Hands Service Day
  • Girl Scouts, San Diego-Imperial Council
  • Sony
  • Gothic Volunteer Alliance
  • Torrey Pines Elementary School
  • Palabra Miel Oceanside
  • Vista Magnet Middle
  • Palquist Elementary School
  • Palomar College TRiO
  • New Haven Youth and Family Services
  • Temecula Kids for Peace
  • PASS AmeriCorps
  • Nokia
  • Ramona High School Fusion
  • Toler Elementary School
  • Starwood San Diego
  • LEVI
  • Chula Vista Learning Community Charter School
  • Mueller Charter School
  • Pima Medical Institute
  • AMC Plaza Bonita 14
  • TSC San Diego
  • Pima Medical Institute
  • San Ysidro High School Surf Club
  • Montgomery Middle School