Wood doing good

This is a guest post written by Nate Ivy, Coordinator of the Service-Learning Waste Reduction Project (SLWRP) -- a joint venture between StopWaste.org and the Alameda County Office of Education. Students at Wood Middle School recently organized their 2nd Annual Beach Clean-Up as part of their participation in the program. These same kids have also participated in Save The Bay field trips to learn more about their watershed and the ways in which their actions impact the health of the Bay.

Enjoy the post!

Wood Middle School 2nd Annual Beach Clean-Up

Wednesday, 26 May 2010

At first glance, Crown Memorial Beach in Alameda appears to be a clean, pleasant retreat highlighted by sweeping views of San Francisco. Unlike many other public shorelines along the San Francisco Bay, Crown Beach does not appear on a list of Trash Hot Spots. However, students from Wood Middle School in Alameda discovered that looks can be deceiving as they participated in their 2nd annual microscopic beach clean-up.

Designed by science teacher Jeannette Frechou, the microscopic clean-up focuses on small bits of plastic that birds and other animals often confuse for bite sized bits of food. A close examination of the high tide line reveals a smorgasbord of multicolored plastics that easily float on the surface of the water.

"People are jerks! Who would do something like this?" one student declares.

In fact, students found many bits of debris from products they themselves use. Data tracking sheets reported the collection of plastic forks, bottle caps, salsa packets, and even a small plastic army man.

"We all do it," replies another. "It's not like people come and throw this on the beach... every piece of litter that falls on the ground or out of our car door gets washed down to the beach. We all have to be more careful." As if to emphasize the source of litter, a storm drain outlet peeks out of the receeding tide- connected to a storm drain one block from school labeled, "No Dumping! Drains to Bay."

This year, students have been working to do more than just be more careful with litter they produce, they have been studying choices that help to eliminate waste before it is produced. Staff and students from Wood Middle School have engaged in a partnership with the Alameda County Office of Education and Save The Bay to address marine debris through a grant provided by NOAA.

Earlier this year, students wrote letters to the editor addressing the challenge of candy wrappers entering the ecosystem at Halloween. In a study of healthy eating, students observed that healthier food choices usually use less packaging and benefit both human and environmental health. In just 60 seconds, one participant picked up 13 soda bottle caps along the tideline highlighting the challenges to our health and our environment.

Frechou helped students make further connections at the beach as she pointed out a tar ball, likely a legacy of the Cosco Busan oil spill of 2007. "Plastic is made from oil. We use a huge amount of oil to transport so many of the things we buy from all around the world. To help avoid spills in the future, we need to use less oil and less plastic."

Ms. VerDuin, another participating teacher from Wood, plans to use the beach clean up activity as a starting point for a discussion on marine debris, oceanic currents, the Pacific Garbage patch and the impact of plastic on wildlife. "There is a disturbing series of photos from Chris Jordan taken at Midway Atoll that shows birds killed by bits of plastic just like the ones we are cleaning up today. The clean-up activity will really help students connect to this global problem."

Click here to see the original post, complete with photos!

Local youth take on trash

By Sigrid Mueller, Education Director

As you may know, Save The Bay works hard to curb the steady onslaught of plastic bags and trash on our local waterways and the Bay. And now the Education Department is joining the fight with a new partnership with StopWaste.org, integrating watershed with waste reduction education for students and teachers in Alameda County.

Save The Bay and StopWaste share a common goal: to reduce the harmful impact of trash, waste and pollutants on the Bay and our community. And we share a common approach: using hands-on, experiential environmental education and service-learning to support young people with developing the necessary knowledge, skills and attitudes to adopt a sustainable life-style.

During almost all of our Canoes In Sloughs field trips, students find trash floating around the wetlands and they often wonder where it comes from. It is then that a proverbial light bulb goes off. An 11th grader from Berkeley High School had this to say:

“To tell you the truth, I littered even after our teacher has done all that recycling work with us. But when you took us out to the sloughs I saw for myself how the litter from my community washes down to the Bay and I was appalled by it. Since then,I have stopped littering.”

Analogous to “a picture is worth a thousand words” students leave our field trips deeply touched and motivated to change their attitudes and behaviors.

And this is where StopWaste comes in. They provide students with the perfect opportunity to turn their motivation into action through a year-round, on-campus program called Service-Learning Waste Reduction Project (better known as SLWRP). SLWRP trains and supports teachers to educate students about waste and to engage them in waste reduction projects in their schools and communities. This school year, Save The Bay is partnering with five SLWRP schools closing the loop for many students by helping them understand how the Bay is connected to their campus and why it matters that they’re doing their part to keep trash off the ground.

One of our partner schools has already kicked into gear! A teacher at Wood Middle School started to notice the rapid increase of candy wrappers in her own neighborhood and at school weeks before Halloween. She brought this issue to the attention of her 8th graders, who quickly recognized those candy wrappers are not just an eye sore but are potentially harmful pieces of trash. The students decided to take action by writing letters to the editor of their local newspaper, demanding more public awareness around the threats of litter to wildlife, the Bay and the ocean. Here’s how one 8th grader put it:

“Every year I realize that happy, candy-loving children throw plastic candy wrappers on the ground. Well, for one thing piles of non-degradable plastic go into the drains and right into the ocean. The fish in the sea think the plastic is food. And the seagulls -- who eat ANYTHING -- eat the wrappers and the fish. The plastic blocks the throat and the stomach and kill the animal! We throw the trash on the ground and don’t bother to pick it up because a) no one is watching; b) it’s now stepped on; and c) you’re just not going to bother. If we could just remind parents and children to not litter, there is less work for the environment and less work for the trash collectors. Please help us save Alameda and the world. The world lies in our hands.”

We couldn't have said it better ourselves.

SF Water Board puts trash in its place

By Amy Ricard, Communications and Policy Associate

Fish and wildlife may finally get some relief from pervasive trash pollution.

Yesterday, the San Francisco Regional Water Quality Control Board voted to approve historic and long-overdue requirements for cities to make significant, measurable reductions in trash flowing to the Bay.

This is great news for the Bay! Even the San Francisco Chronicle thinks so.

Under the new municipal regional permit, cities and other permittees must reduce trash getting into the Bay by 40 percent in the next four years, and achieve zero trash discharge from stormwater within 12 years.

Intense public interest and involvement and years of sustained advocacy have finally produced a permit approach that can begin to reduce Bay trash. In fact, 20 state and federal legislators, nearly 40 community organizations and environmental groups and thousands of Save The Bay supporters have joined us in advocating that trash must be reduced like mercury and other urban runoff pollutants.

What to do now? Save The Bay is urging the Water Board to work diligently to ensure full compliance with these groundbreaking regulations; and through the Clean Bay Project, we are working with cities to help them achieve these important trash reductions.

Battin' Cleanup

By Amy Ricard, Communications and Policy Associate

Last week Save The Bay launched its 4th annual list of Bay Trash Hot Spots in anticipation of Coastal Cleanup Day to raise awareness about the trash problem in the Bay and to recruit volunteers to Coastal Cleanup events throughout the region.

This year, we put the spotlight on plastic bags; and even used last year's Coastal Cleanup Day data to help us determine the ten locations around the Bay where volunteers removed the most plastic bags. Not only are these ten spots choked with bag pollution, but they are indicative of a larger problem in the Bay. Plastic bags are ubiquitous -- literally, they are everywhere. And since they are so light and flimsy, they are easily picked up by the wind and blown into our storm drains and creeks, and eventually to our Bay and ocean where they harm wildlife, degrade habitat and spoil our quality of life.

Each year Save The Bay hosts several cleanup events and this year was no exception. We had teams out at three sites: Candlestick Park in San Francisco (one of our hot spots), Coyote Creek in Milpitas (also a hot spot) and Eden Landing in Hayward. Volunteers came out in droves -- 200 in total -- to help clean up the Bay. They were rewarded with an absolutely amazingly beautiful day and the gratification of a good, hard days work.

Here are the numbers:

Candlestick Park - 109 volunteers; 2,000 lbs of trash and recyclables
Eden Landing - 45 volunteers; a 20 yard dumpster and two truck beds of trash and recyclables
Coyote Creek - 46 volunteers; 450 lbs of trash and recyclables

And the latest from the California Coastal Commission, which oversees all Coastal Cleanup Day events for the entire state, is this: With 65% of the cleanup sites reporting, the statewide count stands at 66,550 volunteers, which should approach the event goal of 70,000 volunteers. Those volunteers picked up 819,394 pounds of trash and an additional 89,899 pounds of recyclable materials, for a total of 909,294 pounds. They expect to exceed 1,000,000 pounds of trash when all the totals are in. Not too shabby for three hours worth of work.

Save The Bay wants to thank all the volunteers in the Bay Area and statewide who donated their time to cleaning up our waterways, protecting habitat and wildlife.

If you are interested in protecting and restoring the shoreline year round, visit www.saveSFbay.org/restore.

Is there a Hot Spot near you?

Have you checked out our Bay Trash Hot Spots yet? Click on the link below to see our interactive map, watch our clever two-minute video, take action and sign up to volunteer!

Big win for the Bay!

by Laura Reinhard, Policy Associate

I was at the hearing this week where the Water Board unanimously agreed that 24 tributaries and two major shoreline sections of the Bay are so clogged with trash that they violate the Clean Water Act. This historic step was widely reported in over 20 media stories, including this article in the San Francisco Chronicle or this article in the San Jose Mercury News.

Save The Bay members and concerned citizens helped document this problem by sending in photos of trashy creeks and shorelines around the Bay. Of course, now we have a lot more work to do to make sure that our creeks and Bay get cleaned up. Stay tuned!

For more information on Bay trash, and to find the trash hot spots near you, click here .

Kick the Bag Habit

by Amy Alton, Communications Associate

The San Francisco Weekly published this article a few weeks ago about plastic bags and whether or not banning their usage is the proper way to clean up the environment and end global warming. As the debate between paper versus plastic heats up, it seemed appropriate to share with you Save The Bay's stance on the matter: BYORB—Bring Your Own Reusable Bag.

Californians use an estimated 19 billion plastic bags per year, but only five percent of these are recycled. While some plastic bags sit in landfills for thousands of years, many find their way to our Bay where they often entangle, choke and even kill wildlife. In fact, an astounding fifteen thousand plastic bags were pulled out of the Bay by volunteers in just one day last year.

Paper bags aren't really the answer either. That's why Save The Bay is asking you to join us in supporting a single-use bag fee by signing our petition and helping your community make the switch to re-useable grocery bags, keeping both plastic and paper bags out of the Bay. And while you are shopping, please remember to bring your own bags!

The other kind of Water Boarding

by Laura Reinhard, Policy Associate

While most Bay Area residents don’t lose sleep wondering what is going on at the San Francisco Regional Water Board, people in Vallejo (and elsewhere around the Bay) just might start. The Vallejo Times-Herald recently reported that the city's Rindler Creek is one of many Bay Area creeks being considered for the EPA's "303d" list of trash-impaired waterways. This "303d" designation has sparked backlash from municipalities and, on January 14, brought a showdown at the ol’ Water Board hearing room. I was glad to be there to witness some real leadership for the environment.

On one side: The Clean Water Act and the health of the Bay

On the other: The well-paid consultants who make their money off of studying trash pollution at city expense.

And the bone of contention is the possibility of the Water Board reporting 24 Bay tributaries and two sections of Bay shoreline to the EPA for being so full of trash as to violate the Clean Water Act,. This would require cities to clean up the trash and fix the problem. You will note, quite often the companies making lots of money studying a problem for cities are not the companies making money fixing the problem.

Bay Area cities are understandably concerned about budget woes. But it makes more sense to invest in solutions than superfluous studies of a well-documented problem. Inserts in storm drains that catch trash are one type of project that would keep trash out of our waterways.

In considering reporting these creeks and shorelines to the EPA, several Water Board members spoke out about the crisis of trash and plastic debris in the Bay. Board member Steve Moore, an engineer who has extensive experience with runoff and trash issues, spoke passionately about the need for action. He pointed out the opportunity to put Bay Area residents to work through overdue infrastructure investments that will also clean up the trash and polluted runoff choking our waterways.

The outcome of this showdown looks to be going the Bay’s way. An official vote won’t come until next month or later, but if the January 14 hearing was any indication, the score might be Bay: 1 Trash: 0

Learn more about Save The Bay's Bay Trash Hot Spots

Save The Bay does Coastal Cleanup Day

by Jocelyn Gretz, Community Programs Manager

Originally posted on September 26, 2008

Photo by Adrienne Miller

Last weekend Save The Bay hosted five Coastal Cleanup Day events in four counties ringing the Bay. Coyote Creek and the Guadalupe River in San Jose, Eden Landing Ecological Reserve in Hayward, the Martin Luther King Jr. Shoreline Park in Oakland and Mission Creek in San Francisco all got a little TLC from over 300 Save The Bay volunteers.

Coastal Cleanup Day started in Oregon in 1985 and California--with its sweeping coastline--was quick to join the following year, taking the lead ever since. Last year over 60,000 Californians volunteered out of an international total of 378,000! I suppose we could thank our long coastline and large population, but I think it might have more to do with the quality people of our state and their love for our aquatic resources.

I led 75 volunteers at Mission Creek in cleaning up trash from Giants fans, homeless encampments and runoff washed down from the watershed. We found plenty of the usual items like cigarette butts, needles and plastic bags, as well as unusual items like suitcases, car parts and electronic boards. I had to run around to keep up with the demand for bags and garbage bins, and not until the end of the three hours was actually able to pick up some trash myself. Our county coordinators at Literacy for Environmental Justice helped keep us stocked and indicated that all of their sites were maxing out on supplies--a good indicator that this year was much bigger than last year.

Our volunteers varied in ages, with high school students to octogenarians cleaning up their neighborhood waterways. Many groups like Building With Books, The Eden United Church of Christ, Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts, UC Berkeley's Circle K Community Service club, and even employees from the Hard Rock Café joined our Bay-wide cleanups!

In total, we had 319 volunteers contributing 957 hours of service to the Bay collecting 11,000 pounds of trash and over 1,000 pounds of recycling. Statewide preliminary results indicate that 60,000 volunteers collected 635,000 pounds of trash and over 100,000 pounds of recycling. Thanks to all who showed up for the event! We're looking forward to another successful Coastal Cleanup Day event next year!

In the meantime, Save The Bay hosts monthly cleanup and restoration events at several sites around the Bay. And we are just about to start our winter planting season! Sign up to volunteer today!

Trash talk gets tough

by Laura Reinhard, Policy Associate

Originally posted on September 19, 2008

A few days ago as I was enjoying my morning coffee, I overheard a funny conversation between a pair of cyclists in San Mateo. They had just finished their post-ride sandwiches. 

      “Hey, you’re not going to throw away that plastic bag, are you?”

            “Well, I don’t really need it. They just gave it to me with my leftovers.”

      “Give it to me! Those things are like gold in San Francisco now.”

As a result of San Francisco’s recent ban on plastic bags San Franciscans are saving and re-using plastic bags instead of throwing them away—where they often wind up in our creeks, Bay and ocean. This result is exactly what environmental advocates have been encouraging for decades.  Yet often our local, state and federal governments opt for the easy-out—the “public education” approach—shying away from the controversy of putting laws on the books.

Overhearing this exchange brought home to me just how effective public policy can be in changing our behavior. “Public education”, while important, won’t be enough without effective regulation. The problem of marine debris and plastics pollution seems so much bigger than our family’s grocery bags. Often, we don’t feel like our actions matter enough to warrant changing our behavior. But that’s the point of legislation—to help us, en masse, to do the right thing—even when we can’t always see the impact for ourselves. San Francisco’s ban has made plastic bags less plentiful and disposable. More people are switching to reusable bags, keeping millions of plastic bags out of the Bay and ocean, and ultimately out of the stomachs of seals, turtles, and birds.

Despite massive public outcry over plastic pollution in our bays and oceans, many Bay Area cities are lobbying hard to block regulation aimed at stopping trash flows into the Bay. Unfortunately, they might be winning. The San Francisco Regional Water Quality Control Board (Water Board) has the authority to require cities to stop the daily flood of trash into the Bay from polluted creeks and rivers. The Water Board can set limits on the amount of pollution cities can discharge into the Bay when they re-write the storm water permit this Fall, Save The Bay wants a strong permit that requires measurable, enforceable reductions in trash pollution. Cities and counties, on the other hand, want a weak permit, with toothless regulations on trash. We won’t know if their lobbying efforts are paying off until we review the next permit draft when it is released in a few weeks.

Most of us have no idea how the Water Board seriously affects our lives and environment, but they are a critical regulator of pollution. Trash in the Bay affects our quality of life, not just the lives of sea birds and seals. That’s why there’s never been a better time to speak up and tell the Water Board that you want a strong storm water permit. We’ve been flushing our trash into the Bay for long enough. It’s time to get strong trash pollution laws on the books.

Bay Trash--Threatening Damon Slough and shorelines near you!

by Amy Alton, Communications Associate


Originally posted on September 17, 2008

If you’ve ever taken BART to an event at Oracle Arena or McAfee Coliseum, you have crossed over it. If you’ve ever traveled in or out of the Oakland Airport, you’ve flown over it. And if you live in East Oakland, your neighborhood storm drain connects right to it. I’m talking about Damon Slough. A thriving habitat flowing around the Coliseum and running alongside the Nimitz Freeway, Damon Slough in Martin Luther King Jr. Regional Shoreline Park opens up to Arrowhead Marsh and is home to several species of native plants, including pickleweed and arrowgrass, and endangered wildlife like the California clapper rail and the salt marsh harvest mouse. It’s also home to unsightly masses of trash and debris.

At Save The Bay, we call it a “Bay Trash Hot Spot.” In fact, for the last three years we have compiled a list of some the Bay Area’s trashiest waterways to call attention to this problem and Damon Slough has been on the list for three years running. One of the few, three-time repeat offenders, Damon Slough in its current state is particularly disturbing given it has all the makings of the proverbial Cinderella story.

In the 1980’s, crews from the Port of Oakland began dumping fill into the northeast side of the marsh. Fortunately the commotion caught the attention of East Bay Regional Park District staff and they contacted the authorities. After a successful lawsuit headed by the Golden Gate Audubon Society, Save The Bay, and the Sierra Club, $2.5 million dollars were allocated for restoration of this 72-acre wetland.

Since 2000, Save The Bay has partnered with East Bay Regional Park District to work with schools, community groups and corporations to restore wetland habitat along Damon Slough. Part of that effort includes shoreline cleanups to pick up trash and debris from urban runoff, litter, and dumping. To date, our volunteers have removed over 20,000 pounds of trash and recyclables!

Even so, Damon Slough is repeatedly inundated with plastic bags, Styrofoam cups, cigarette butts, bottle caps, car batteries, shopping carts, industrial waste, and old electronics.

While Damon Slough is of particular concern, trash accumulates in massive amounts all over the Bay, choking wetlands, poisoning and entangling wildlife, and harming water quality. A 2005 assessment by the San Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality Control Board (Water Board) found an average of three pieces of trash along every foot of streams that lead to the Bay. And this trash also has global ramifications; it flows out the Golden Gate to form part of the “Great Pacific Garbage Patch”—a floating island of trash the size of Texas.

So what can we do? The good news is that because we create this pollution, we have the power to diminish it. We can:

Reduce the amount of trash we generate and make sure our trash doesn't end up in the Bay.

Dispose properly of hazardous waste, switch to reusable bags, and recycle and compost when we can.

Advocate for tougher policies and regulations to reduce trash flowing to the Bay. In fact, the Water Board has the opportunity to stop trash from fouling the Bay as they vote this fall to renew the storm water permit. Save The Bay is working to ensure that the permit limits the amount of trash cities and counties discharge into the Bay.

Volunteer to clean up and restore the Bay shoreline. Save The Bay hosts monthly cleanup and restoration events at several sites around San Francisco Bay. This Saturday, nearly 100 Save The Bay volunteers will clean up hot spot Damon Slough at the Martin Luther King Jr. Regional Shoreline in Oakland, as part of the Coastal Commission’s 24th annual Coastal Cleanup Day.