Beautify Chula Vista Day

I Love A Clean San Diego and the City of Chula Vista are excited for this year’s Beautify Chula Vista Day! Join us on Saturday, October 21st from 8:30 AM – 12:00 PM and help us celebrate Beautify Chula Vista Day’s 15th year by giving back to the Chula Vista community with a cleanup and several projects! This event as a whole has made an extensive impact on the City of Chula Vista and will continue on its path to make a difference for the years to come! It is truly amazing the results that can come from one morning with hundreds of enthusiastic volunteers!

This year, volunteers can meet us at one of the following two locations: Rice Canyon at Discovery Park (700 Buena Vista Way, Chula Vista, CA 91910) or Otay Rec Center (3554 Main St, Chula Vista, CA 91911)! Volunteers will pick up trash, remove graffiti, and complete other projects that make Chula Vista shine. More information about the event can be found at www.BeautifyChulaVista.org.

Waiver forms are available online or at the cleanup site. All volunteers are required to fill out a waiver form to participate, and anyone under the age of 18 needs a parent or guardian signature. Signed forms will be made available to volunteers who need verification of service hours. We will have all supplies needed at the cleanup site, but we encourage volunteers to bring their own reusable items (water bottles, work gloves, and buckets) if they have them to promote zero waste practices!

For the waiver, click HERE.
Register today!

Coastal Cleanup Day Site Highlight: Paradise Creek

This year’s Coastal Cleanup Day is set for Saturday, September 16th from 9:00 AM – 12:00 PM. One local wetland has benefitted from the work of a dedicated group of volunteers for the last 25 years, and it is once again set to be a site for the annual volunteer effort.

Paradise Creek Educational Park is a public park in the Old Town neighborhood of National City that was designed to increase environmental stewardship and to provide a place of respite in the busy city. Paradise Creek has flowed out to San Diego Bay as part of the Sweetwater River watershed for thousands of years. In 1999, the non-profit organization, Paradise Creek Educational Park Inc., formed to carry out the mission of advocating for and preserving the salt marsh wetlands. Since that year, a group of community members, teachers, students, families, and others have been holding Creek Day cleanups on the last Saturday of every month. 

On this year’s Coastal Cleanup Day, the park will hold a small celebration of the recent completion of work carried out by the City of National City. Come out and take a walk through the new entry way of native plants at 1815 Hoover Avenue in National City. Also, there is a new schoolyard garden that can be visited. Check out the Paradise Creek Facebook page for more information. 

There is still time to register to volunteer at the Paradise Creek site on Coastal Cleanup Day. Head over to CleanupDay.org to sign up at Paradise Creek or one of the other 100+ cleanup sites in San Diego County for Coastal Cleanup Day and be a part of this international day of action!

Sweetwater Sweep

End your summer on a good note and join ILACSD and the San Diego County Parks and Recreation for a cleanup at Sweetwater Regional Park on Saturday, September 2nd from 9:00 AM – 12:00 PM!

Join us in our efforts to keep our watersheds clean this year and prevent trash and debris from traveling through our watersheds and reaching the ocean! Volunteers will meet at 3260 Conduit Road, Bonita, CA 91902.

Practice with us a zero waste lifestyle by bringing your own reusable items such as a bucket, work gloves, and reusable water bottle!

All volunteers must sign a waiver form in order to participate. Any volunteer under the age of 18 needs a parent or guardian signature as well.

For a map and directions, click HERE.
For the waiver, click HERE.
Register today!

Leave Only Leaves – Lakeside Community Cleanup

Did you know that there are 11 different watersheds in San Diego? Join ILACSD and the Lakeside River Park Conservancy to clean up the San Diego watershed so that only leaves are left behind!

The event is on Saturday, September 9th from 9:00 AM – 12:00 PM at 12108 Industry Rd, Lakeside, CA 92040.

Have you thought about zero waste practices, but don’t know where to start? Bring your own reusable items such as water bottles, work gloves, or a bucket and help us reduce the amount of trash we create during this cleanup! Spread the word and invite your friends and family to join us!

All volunteers are required to fill out a waiver form, of which any participants under the age of 18 will need a parent/guardian signature.

We hope to see you there!

For Map and Directions, click HERE.
For the waiver, click HERE.
Register today!

Clean Canyons for a Clean Coast

Did you know that 80% of coastal debris stems from inland sources? Explore and protect San Diego’s canyons and waterways at I Love A Clean San Diego’s Clean Canyons for a Clean Coast Cleanup at Adobe Falls! Hosted in partnership with the California Coastal Commission’s Adopt-A-Beach Program, this cleanup will help remove litter and debris from entering our oceans by collecting it at an inland location. With your help, we can eliminate trash and waste before they pollute our ocean and help protect and preserve Adobe Falls’ natural state!

Please note, this event is not suitable for children. ILACSD suggests volunteers for this event are 15 years old and up. The cleanup location is in a riverbed surrounded by dense trees and shrubbery, is accessed by a steep hill, and does not have established paths. Come prepared to get your hands dirty and explore a hidden treasure!

Volunteers will meet at the gate on 5767 Adobe Falls Road, San Diego, CA 92120.

We will have cleanup supplies, snacks, and water. We also provide community service hours and Letters of Appreciation for volunteers. This is a great opportunity for students and families to learn ways to protect our local environment!

We encourage volunteers to bring their own reusable items such as water bottles, work gloves, and buckets to promote zero waste practices. This helps us in our mission to have a zero waste, litter free and environmentally engaged San Diego region!

All volunteers are required to fill out a waiver form to participate. Anyone under the age of 18 needs a waiver signed by their parent or guardian.

See you there!

For a map and directions, click HERE.
For the waiver, click HERE.
Register here! 

Registration Open for 33rd Annual Coastal Cleanup Day

Get registered today at www.CleanupDay.org!

Registration officially is open for San Diego County’s Coastal Cleanup Day! While the name Coastal Cleanup Day suggests that this cleanup is all about the beach, many of you already know ILACSD’s volunteer efforts reach far beyond the coast. With eighty percent of marine debris originating in inland areas, at ILACSD we have expanded our Coastal Cleanup Day reach to include both inland and coastal territory. This year, sixty-five percent of the cleanup sites are located inland along rivers, creeks, canyons, and urban areas with the aim to stop debris before it makes its way to the ocean. We even have 3 clean ups happening on the water with kayaks! With 114 cleanup sites last year, volunteers removed 185,000 pounds of debris from San Diego County – the equivalent weight of 10 garbage trucks! Help us remove even more trash and debris and beautify our county by getting registered for this year’s Coastal Cleanup Day on September 16, 2017, from 9:00 AM – 12:00 PM! Get registered now at www.CleanupDay.org!

Cut back on waste by bringing your own reusable buckets, work gloves, and water bottle if you have them!

In an effort to reduce waste produced by an event of this size, Coastal Cleanup Day volunteers can pledge to bring at least one reusable item to the cleanup. When volunteers bring their own reusable water bottle, work gloves, and bucket to collect litter, they prevent thousands of single-use bags and disposable gloves from entering San Diego’s landfills. When you register, please consider pledging to bring one of these items with you (or all three)! Once again, we will be having our “Bling Your Bucket” competition for Coastal Cleanup Day. Participants have the opportunity to decorate their reusable buckets showing off their creativity and imagination and submit photos for the chance to win fun prizes and have their picture posted on the Coastal Cleanup Day website for one year! Volunteers of all ages are also encouraged to participate!

Participate in the Sony Photo Contest for the chance to win a Point & Shoot Camera!

The Sony Photo Contest is also returning to Coastal Cleanup Day! While you spend the morning helping to preserve our environment, snap some pictures of all of your hard work! After attending Coastal Cleanup Day, participants can submit their best photo from the event into the competition where the top five finalists will be put to a vote on the ILACSD Facebook page. The winner will receive a Sony Point and Shoot Camera!

We also collect valuable data about the debris collection that helps us understand how we can better prevent litter. Instead of using paper data cards, ILACSD is asking volunteers to download the Ocean Conservancy’s user-friendly mobile data collection app, Clean Swell, onto their smartphones as another way to cut back on waste.

Bring the whole family and join us for Coastal Cleanup Day on September 16th!

Not only will we be removing litter on Coastal Cleanup Day, the event also includes beautification projects such as graffiti removal and replacement of invasive species with drought-tolerant alternatives. Volunteers who signup will work with ILACSD to preserve and enhance San Diego for current and future generations to enjoy. Leading the way to a zero waste, litter-free, and environmentally engaged San Diego region, ILACSD encourages all community members to take action in their neighborhood by joining us on September 16th. Registration information and details regarding Coastal Cleanup Day can be found at www.CleanupDay.org.

Creek2Bay Site Captain Spotlight – Spanish Landing

Each year, I Love a Clean San Diego hosts the annual Creek to Bay Cleanup, with over 100+ cleanup sites. We like to highlight our volunteer site captains who go above and beyond to help make this event possible. For today’s blog, we’ve chosen Brendan Reed from the San Diego County Regional Airport Authority to tell us about his journey to help keep San Diego clean and how he and his team are making a difference in our community. Read on to learn more about how Brendan got involved and how you can make a difference at a site near you.

Brendan is a seasoned volunteer site captain and is committed to keeping San Diego clean. When he isn’t volunteering with ILACSD, you can find him at the San Diego Regional Airport Authority, where he is the Environmental Sustainability Manager. Brendan’s main focuses are energy and water conservation, air quality management, and clean transportation at the San Diego Airport.

Having such a passion for sustainability Brendan finds himself as the site captain at Spanish Landing Park East in Point Loma – what he considers “the front door step” for the traveling airport passengers. Spanish Landing is a relatively new site, which Brendan believes makes it an “untapped” area for cleanups. While the site is generally kept clean, Brendan says that you would be surprised by the amount of trash you can still find and cleanup, especially objects like cigarette butts, old fishing line, and other smaller items. 

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Small pieces of litter really do add up!

Brendan first started volunteering with ILACSD ten years ago when he was the environmental manager for the City of Chula Vista. What keeps Brendan coming back year after year? Brendan says it’s, “ILACSD’s mission and their on-the-ground projects.” Brendan feels that through cleanups, communities are engaged and it’s a great benefit not just for the environment but for everyone. Brendan encourages others to come out on April 23rd at one of the 110 sites because even their smallest actions could make all the difference. “With 5,000 plus volunteers we are making a difference and that’s inspiring”.

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It’s more than a cleanup. Creek to Bay is about community.

He encourages those who are looking to get involved with I Love a Clean San Diego to find a site that has meaning for them. By volunteering at the Creek to Bay Cleanup, we can help reduce our impact on the local environment.

Keep San Diego thriving and show it some love! Save the Date for the Creek to Bay Cleanup happening on April 23, 2016 by registering today at CreektoBay.org!

A big thank you to Brendan Reed for all his work as a site captain and to the San Diego County Regional Airport Authority for supporting I Love A Clean San Diego’s Creek to Bay Cleanup.

Thank you for investing in a clean San Diego!

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Thanks to San Diego International Airport for their support!

 

 

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.

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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!

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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!

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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!

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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!

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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!

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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 23rd from 9AM-12PM. Registration opens April 1st at CreektoBay.org!

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Moriah bridges love for craft beer & the environment

Mo brewing beerToday’s blog comes from our Community Program Coordinator, Moriah as she shares her love for San Diego craft beer and our environment!

I am known as the resident beer nerd at I Love a Clean San Diego.  After working at a local brewery for about a year and brewing at home, it’s safe to say I know a thing or two about beer.  One thing I didn’t know, however, was how connected my love of beer was to my love for the environment.  In a city like San Diego, it’s not surprising that our local breweries value our environment as much as they value their craft.

Ways SD breweries minimize waste

Water conservation is a big issue for everyone in California, and that includes craft breweries.  The industry average in California ranges from 3.5 to 6 gallons of water for every gallon of beer produced.  Breweries in San Diego are leading the way in reducing the amount of water needed for their production.  Local breweries are becoming increasingly water-wise.  According to the California Craft Brewers Association, Ballast Point has reduced its water use by more than 24 percent, and Stone Brewing Company recycles more than 62 percent of its water daily.

One of the biggest ways that local breweries reduce waste is by using their spent grain in creative ways.  Spent grain is the grain left over after the brewing process.  Instead of throwing this used grain in the landfill, most of San Diego’s breweries donate it to local farms, where it can be used as livestock feed.  Stone Brewing Company even uses it as a mulching tool in their garden.  Some of their spent grain goes towards locally made soaps and dog treats as well!

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Hop farm picture is Jordan Brownwood tending hops at Nopalito Farm & Hopyard. Photo credit:  slowfoodurbansandiego.org

San Diego is known for its hop-heavy beers, but did you know that farms right here in San Diego County grow one of beer’s most important ingredients? Nopalito Farms is a local, family-run organic hopyard and orchard in North County San Diego.  Since water conservation is always an issue in Southern California, Nopalito Farms has adopted sustainable farming practices like drip irrigation and mulching, and they work to maximize the rain that they get in Valley Center.

Imbibe with the earth in mind!

  • Bring a growler with you next time you pick up beer. Instead of cans or glass bottles that will end up in your blue bin, get a reusable growler and take it to the closest brewery.  Get fresh, draft beer straight from the source! Be sure to check with the brewery first to see if they have any specific growler policies.
  • Reuse old beer or wine bottles to make decorations for your house. At our recent Sustainable Living Workshop that focuses on a zero waste home, our educators taught attendees how to reuse their old bottles and turn them into fashionable home decorations.

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    One example of a  repurposed wine bottle from our Zero Waste Home Workshop.

Volunteer at Cupid’s Cleanup!

If all of this beer talk has you thirsty, you can join us and Benchmark Brewing Company on Saturday, February 13th from 10am-12pm for a cleanup of the San Diego River! Why not switch up the typical dinner and a movie Valentine’s Day date and help us clean up the San Diego River instead. Then, if this blog has inspired you to try some local San Diego suds, you can join us afterward for a Valentine’s Day-themed mixer hosted by Benchmark Brewing Company! Families, sweethearts, kids, and singles are all welcome.

Register here! Help us spread the word by joining the Facebook event and sharing the cleanup with your friends and family. 

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