Tag: sony

Join the conversation #AmericaRecyclesDay

Ani has written another amazing blog for this week! If you follow us on social media, you know that we’re gearing up for America Recycles Day, the one day a year that is dedicated to making the most of our resources through recycling and upcycling! By the end of this blog, not only will you know what ARD is all about, but we hope you’ll be inspired to celebrate with us by boosting our recycling efforts here in San Diego!

The 8^th annual America Recycles Day is November 15^thso be sure to mark your calendar! The goal of America Recycles Day, an initiative led by Keep America Beautiful, is to acknowledge our recycling efforts and stir up a conversation about what more can be done to ensure our communities stay litter-free. This is ever so important in San Diego as the city is moving towards a 75% waste diversion rate by 2020, an ambitious goal that will engage the community to think twice about what is thrown out. That means that in addition to beefing up our recycling efforts, the city is also encouraging upcycling and repairing many things that would have otherwise been thrown away.

End of campaign infographic — Click here to see the full infographic highlighting last year’s results!

Last year during our campaign, an estimated 1,015 gallons of paint, 255 gallons of motor oil, and 980 gallons of other household hazardous waste was properly disposed of thanks to the help of Waste Free SD, the County of San Diego’s Recycling and Household Hazardous Waste database lead by yours truly, I Love A Clean San Diego.

What’s new this year?

GLEANERS! Don’t know what a “gleaner” is? Not to worry, we’ll get you up to speed!
Test your blue bin knowledge. Let us know how much you know about curbside recycling.
In need of a fast way to recycle your old cell phone and make some cash? You’ll learn more about one of my favorite tried and true options!

This year we would also like to recognize Sony for supporting our America Recycles Day campaign and allowing us to share important recycling information with all of you through social media. Sony is one of our longest standing supporters, helping us achieve our mission year round by volunteering at cleanups and supporting our environmental education programs. Thank you, Sony!

Be sure to connect with I Love A Clean San Diego on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram to keep the conversation going during our 2-week long campaign. We want to congratulate your efforts and encourage everyone to recycle! Let’s keep San Diego clean, together #AmericaRecyclesDay

Local Businesses Step Up for Creek2Bay

Today’s blog comes from our Community Programs Manager, Lexi! If you have ever volunteered for one of our cleanups there is a good chance you two have crossed paths! In addition to community cleanups, she also helps coordinate our two countywide cleanups, Creek to Bay and Coastal Cleanup Day. Creek to Bay is the first countywide cleanup of the year and there will be close to 100 cleanup sites across San Diego County! Read on to learn more about how local businesses have stepped up to protect and conserve our environment!

Preparations for our Earth Month volunteer event, the Creek to Bay Cleanup, are in full swing here at I Love A Clean San Diego. With 95 cleanup and beautification projects happening throughout San Diego County on April 25, it’s certainly a busy time around our office!

This event would not be possible without the support of some of our business partners in the community. We’d like to take this opportunity to recognize some of these groups that help make this event a success.

BoxedGreen

One of our newest partners for this event is local startup BoxedGreen. This eco-friendly company is helping San Diegans reduce their environmental impact by offering gently used cardboard boxes for $1 each. Through unique partnerships with local businesses, BoxedGreen connects community members in need of boxes with nearby retailers who have boxes to spare.

BoxedGreen will be donating a portion of the cardboard boxes we use to pack up the cleanup supplies for our 95 different Creek to Bay sites throughout San Diego County. We can’t wait to put these recycled boxes to good use!

RECON Environmental, Inc.
Maple Canyon in the Park West neighborhood of San Diego looks quite a bit different now than it did 4 years ago, thanks in large part to cleanup efforts led by a team from RECON Environmental, Inc. RECON, a local environmental services firm, wanted to use its expertise in habitat restoration to revitalize a canyon in their neighborhood through community involvement.

RECON staff began serving as site captains for this canyon in 2011, focusing first on large trash items that had been illegally dumped years ago. Once these items were properly disposed of, RECON began to focus on habitat restoration by removing invasive plants and slowly returning the canyon to its native state of coastal sage scrub.

Maple Canyon cleanup led by RECON Environmental, Inc.

To keep the canyon looking great between our countywide cleanup efforts (Creek to Bay in April and Coastal Cleanup Day in September), RECON also coordinates their own cleanups of the canyon through our Adopt-A-Beach/Adopt-A-Canyon program. RECON is a perfect example of how a company can take action to beautify the environment right in its own backyard!

Sony
For the last several years, we have worked with our friends at Sony to offer a fun photo contest for all of our volunteers. The winner of this year’s contest will receive a brand new Sony Cyber-Shot camera! Last year’s photo contest theme was “Be The Change,” and we received tons of great shots of volunteers beautifying their local communities.

Last year's Sony Photo Contest winner! — Last year’s Sony Photo Contest winner!

And not only is Sony supporting our event by sponsoring the photo contest—they also gather a volunteer team every year to participate at one of our many cleanup sites.

Sony employee volunteer group at Kids' Ocean Day 2015 — Sony employees volunteer with us year-round in addition to our countywide cleanups! Here is a group of Sony volunteers who joined us at Kids’ Ocean Day in February!

Interested in getting your business connected with our Creek to Bay Cleanup? Visit www.CreektoBay.org to find out about how you can get involved! If you’re interested in becoming a sponsor, please download a copy of our sponsorship packet. For more information, please email Natalie, Senior Director of Operations, at nroberts@cleansd.org. Thank you!

adopt-a-canyon BoxedGreen cleanups community involvement creek to bay employee volunteers habitat restoration local business RECON environmental reuse sony

What’s What at the 2014 Creek to Bay Cleanup

Today’s post comes from I Love A Clean San Diego’s Director of Development & Marketing, Morgan Justice-Black, who will be attending her 8th Creek to Bay Cleanup on April 26, 2014!

I remember my first Creek to Bay Cleanup, it was April 28th, 2007. We hosted our kick off site at Belmont Park in Mission Beach, and it was freezing! But, we still managed to bring out more than 200 volunteers at that site, and just over 3,000 volunteers countywide.

Fast forward to today and we are recruiting an impressive 6,000 volunteers each year, double that of just 7 years prior. A lot has changed about Creek to Bay over the year’s, but the constant has been the heart of San Diego residents who come out to lend a hand, despite rain or record high temperatures!

In just a few short weeks, I Love A Clean San Diego will be hosting its 12th Annual Creek to Bay Cleanup. Here’s a cheat sheet of what you’re in store for you if you volunteer on April 26th at Creek to Bay. A few things that we have planned for this year’s cleanup include:

1. Currently there are 95 cleanup sites available for volunteers to participate in. This is more than ever before! Cleanup sites stretch from Oceanside to Imperial Beach and all the way out to Alpine! We’ve also got a number of incredible site captains who are leading these cleanup sites. Learn more about some of them as we feature them in upcoming blog posts. See them all online at www.CreektoBay.org

2. We are offering Scout patches for Boy Scout and Girl Scout troops who volunteer. Have you seen this year’s patch design? Here it is! Once the cleanup concludes, participants can go back onto our website, www.CreektoBay.org and request their patches.

3. The Bring Your Own Reusables campaign is back in full force, meaning that we want all of our volunteers to bring a few things to help reduce our waste at the cleanup. Please remember to bring: a plastic bucket or other container to collect trash in, work gloves or gardening gloves, and a canteen for refilling with water at the event. You may have heard that our Bring Your Own Reusables campaign, which we fondly refer to as “BYO”, received national recognition by Keep America Beautiful this winter. In case you need a visual reminder, here is what to bring:

Here we are, accepting the Innovation Award from Keep America Beautiful!

4. Our generous friends at Sony Electronics are once again sponsoring our Creek to Bay Photo Contest! This year’s theme…Be The Change! We are asking folks to snap a photo of themselves or their volunteer group changing our environment for the better at Creek to Bay. More information about the contest and submission guidelines are on our Creek to Bay contest page.

Here's last year's photo contest winner, Evan! — Here’s last year’s photo contest winner, Evan!

5. Just a month after our Creek to Bay Cleanup, volunteers will have the opportunity to get together and share stories about the weirdest items they found at our 60th Anniversary Celebration Event. Join us on May 29th from 6:30 – 9pm at SeaWorld for what is bound to be a great time! More information is on our website too!

Can’t wait to see all of you out there on April 26th for another fabulous Creek to Bay Cleanup. And here’s to hoping that this year’s weather is a little warmer than 2007, but not as warm as 2008!

beach cleanups boy scouts creek to bay creek to bay cleanup creek to bay photo contest girl scouts great american cleanup I Love A Clean San Diego innovation award Keep America Beautiful merit badges scout patches sony volunteer

Take the Green Business Pledge this America Recycles Day!

America Recycles Day happens once a year, and it serves as a great opportunity to recognize big things happening in recycling and waste reduction, as well as to motivate others to take action!

The 3 R’s – recycle, reduce, reuse – are inherently connected. To be a successful business, you must have all three.

Case in point: Take Sony Electronics. Their North America headquarters are here in San Diego, and they have been taking strides to reduce the strain that their facility and its hundreds of employees put on our local waste stream.

Sony employees volunteering for our Creek to Bay cleanup

How do they do this?

Food waste composting: Their campus includes a cafe where many employees enjoy all sorts of lunch options from a salad bar to sushi. Instead of throwing away the food waste, facilities teams now compost it.The bins are picked up weekly and taken to Miramar for composting. They are on track to divert 10 tons of waste annually, as a result of their composting program.
Single stream recycling: The easier you make things, the more participation you’ll get. Placing all types of recycling in one container isn’t the most innovative practice, but how about having centralized recycling containers on each floor that serve as visible reminders to recycle? Perhaps water cooler chat will relocate to to the recycling station.
Employee engagement: Engaging employees in environmental education and volunteer efforts surrounding conservation is another key way that Sony drives home the message that each of our actions has an effect on the local environment. By picking up litter at canyon cleanups or attending an education session at the office, environmental conservation is top of mind. This then transitions into employees’ ownership and support of in-house recycling programs and the adoption of sustainable behaviors. Furthermore employees are encouraged to join Sony’s Green Workspace Certification program. This program outlines simple yet effective every day actions that make a real difference in waste, water and energy reduction. Rewards and incentives are available for achievers in the program. All of these initiatives (and many more) are helping Sony along the path to their global “Road to Zero” long term environmental goal.

“Any waste is a waste of resources.” says Eric Johnson, Sustainability Manager at Sony. “By changing some of our internal processes and giving our employees some tools to reduce the waste they generate at work we are aiming to divert at least 15 tons of garbage from the Miramar landfill and increase our recycling rate by 10% over the next year.”

Whether your business has 50 employees or 500, there are always ways to lessen the impact your office has on the environment. Here are a few easy-to-implement suggestions:

-Purchase paper that has, minimum, 30 percent recycled content

-Change the settings on all employee computers so that printing defaults to double-sided copies

– Ensure that each employee has convenient recycling options for common office items like paper and cardboard

– Utilize natural light, when possible, to cut down on energy; keeping the blinds open and opting for low-walled cubicles will help to spread light throughout the office

america recycles day business electronics sony

Creek to Bay Photo Contest – Time to Vote!

On your mark….get set….VOTE!

For the second year in a row, I Love A Clean San Diego has teamed up with Sony Electronics to host a Creek to Bay photo contest. We asked volunteers at this year’s cleanup to best capture the “spirit of service” and send a photo to be entered into our contest. We received a ton of wonderful photos, so it was hard to narrow it down, but we did! We are so lucky to have such hardworking and enthusiastic volunteers! Our top 5 entries have been posted on our Facebook page and it’s up to you to decide who the winner is! All you need to do is ‘Like’ our page and vote for your favorite photo by liking it, it’s as simple as that! Voting is open until Thursday, May 9^th and the winner will be announced Friday, May 10^th. This year’s winner will be receiving a new Sony Cyber-shot camera!

Take a look at our Top 5 photos from this year’s contest (in no particular order):

The Elfin Forest Recreational Reserve sure looks a lot cleaner thanks to the help of this young lady!

Working hard or hardly working? These guys show how fun volunteering can be; you never know what you’ll find!

This Girl Scout Troop had a very successful time cleaning up La Jolla Shores! Check out all of that trash! Impressive job!

This 12 year old Boy Scout is saving marine wildlife one piece of trash at a time! Way to go!

These volunteers show what team work looks like at the Chollas Earthlab site!

beach cleanups creek to bay creek to bay cleanup creek to bay photo contest I Love A Clean San Diego sony