Holy Trash

Israel is more like LA than I possibly imagined.
Both areas definitely suffer from the scourge of plastic pollution. From the iconic Dome of the Rock and the Western Wall in the old city of Jerusalem to the shores of Lake Kinneret, one can follow the histories of three great religions through trash. Important Muslim, Christian [...]

Sending the Wrong Message

Sure it’s embarrassing news that L.A. County actually pays someone to print and place customized labels on bottled water used by supervisors at their meetings.
But there’s a much bigger issue at stake.

Contagious Cleanups

Last Saturday, Heal the Bay held its monthly “Nothin’ But Sand” beach cleanup.  We’ve been running these regularly scheduled cleanups for a few years now, but they’ve really swelled in the last year.
An amazing 820 folks escaped March Madness to come out on a blustery morning to remove debris at Dockweiler Beach near Imperial Highway, [...]

Plastic Turtles

More than a third of all leatherback turtles examined in a recent widespread study contained plastic marine debris in their stomachs and guts. The depressing findings about the world’s largest sea turtles can be found in The Marine Pollution Bulletin, which recently published a paper from the Canadian researchers, N. Mrosovsky, G. Ryan and M. [...]

Tapped Out

The Los Angeles Times recently profiled a new bottled water business in New York called Tap’d NY.  The company is just getting going, having sold about 50,000 bottles of water at a $1.50 a pop. The twist? The water comes from the tap, pumped directly from a New York City main.
Given that the water costs [...]

Rethinking Our Future

Last Sunday on the Santa Monica Promenade, the students from Santa Monica High School’s Team Marine unveiled their opus to the global marine debris crisis: REthink.  The 7′ x 21′ art installation contains 34,727 bottle caps and includes a wide variety of marine life species made of the plastic tops. Think of a Rose Parade [...]

The Definition of Insanity

Late into the night Tuesday — the temporal fate of most environmental measures in Santa Monica — the Santa Monica City Council delayed the first reading of an ordinance that would ban the distribution of plastic bags after receiving a last-minute opposition letter from the Save the Plastic Bag Coalition. 
The draft ordinance called for a [...]

Restoring the Bay

 The  Santa Monica Bay Restoration Commission unanimously approved a new Bay Restoration Plan on Thursday.  Dr. Shelley Luce, executive director of the Bay Commission, and her dedicated staff put together the new recommendations: the long-awaited sequel to the original 1995 plan.  Since the mid-90s, a lot has happened to help restore the Bay. Hyperion and [...]

Now the Hard Work Begins

The Ocean Protection Council, created by the governor to coordinate state efforts to protect our seas in response to Fred Keely legislation, on Thursday unanimously passed its comprehensive marine debris action plan.  This means that a bipartisan California government body has adopted the blueprint for abating California’s contribution to the marine debris crisis. While it [...]

Worth the Wait…

On Thursday morning, the California Ocean Protection Council will hopefully approve its long-awaited marine debris action plan. The plan was drafted by Drew Bohan, OPC’s executive director and dedicated ocean activist, and state staff in response to the OPC’s far-reaching marine debris resolution nearly two years ago.
Despite the long wait, the plan is pretty good. It [...]