Month: January 2011

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Dear fellow Eco-Beasts,

After 3 years of hard work fighting against plastic supporters like the American Chemistry Council and Save the Plastic Bag, the Santa Monica City Council voted in favor for the Single-Use Carryout Bag Ordinance. Team Marine was able to attend the Council meeting, and loved hearing all our fellow Eco-Beasts speak, such as Mark Gold of Heal the Bay and Santa Monica Office of Sustainability and Environment staff. Michelle S, Gregory B, and Nhi H all spoke beautifully as well. We brought our A-game as well as our scariest plastic monsters. The plastic bag industry was no match for our green unity! Plastic bags will be prohibited from grocery stores, liquor stores, convenience marts, etc. Paper bags can be provided for not less than 10 cents. Make sure to stock up on reusable bags, preferably ones made in the US without harmful chemicals. It’s so easy!

Go Reusable, it is Doable!

Team Marine and HtB:

Huge thanks to the Office of Sustainability and Environment, Heal the Bay, Surfrider Foundation, The Daily Ocean, the Clean Seas Coalition, and everyone else who has fought towards this goal!

>Message from a plastic bag:

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Plastic Pollution in Santa Monica will take a major hit on January 25nd, 2011 if a city-wide ordinance banning single-use plastic bags passes. Team Marine has been waiting for a ban on the single-use plastic bag for many years, but one has always been put down or postponed by the Council members of the City of Santa Monica. There is positive speculation that Santa Monica’s Single-Use Carryout Bag Ordinance will pass through the Council and be enacted. With this ban, all businesses in Santa Monica will be prohibited from providing single-use plastic bags, and will have to put a fee on single-use paper bags. The goal is to encourage the residents and visitors of Santa Monica to convert to sustainable, reusable bags.

Join Team Marine and many other Eco-Beasts from all over Southern California at 5:30pm at:
 
CITY HALL COUNCIL CHAMBERS – 1685 MAIN STREET

 

Office of Sustainability and Environment:

Single-use plastic bags contribute to:

• increased litter (including storm drain, marine and beach pollution), that persists in the environment for decades
• green house gas emissions
• Santa Monica’s residents and other taxpayers pay the clean-up costs and landfill fees
  

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Team Marine members, as well as Marine Biology students, and senior UCLA students met on Friday January 21st to collaborate on two different research projects. The UCLA students are led by Dr. Rebecca Shipe of the UCLA Institute of the Environment and Sustainability. The first group, named Group Microbes, will be studying the relationship between harmful algal blooms (HABs) and Enterococcus in the Santa Monica Bay. The second group, dubbed Group Runoff, will study the output of marine debris from the Ballona Creek into the Santa Monica Bay. We are very excited to begin working with these passionate students, and would like to thank Dr. Shipe for giving us this great opportunity.

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Team Marine had an awesome day hanging out and learning from other Eco-Beasts in the area. We were able to screen and spread the important information contained in our 10 R’s video (Part 1 and Part 2). Thank you to Bill MacDonald, Dance 4 Oceans, Captain Charles Moore, and everyone else who attended Sea Pulse at the Electric Lodge today!

These guys are awesome!:

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A huge thanks to the Huffington Post and Lisa Kaas Boyle to writing about Team Marine in their article entitled “Youth Movement to Reduce Plastic Pollution”. It was great to read about other fellow students in the area fighting against plastic pollution with us!

Read the article here: Huffington Post

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Check us out at The Argonaut’s website, concerning Saturday’s Sea Pulse Film Festival.

“…the 10 R’s film, a solutions program, produced, directed and starring Santa Monica High School students from the multi-award-winning sustainability club, Team Marine.”

Click here to read the article: The Argonaut

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Sea Pulse

Saturday January 22nd, 1:30-4:30

Discover  the beauty and the threats to the world ocean!

Presented by filmmaker Bill  MacDonald.

Join us for an afternoon of film, discussion, and a live performance by Dance4Oceans, concerning the health of our local wetlands and oceans everywhere.

click for a Film Preview

 

$5-$10 Suggested donation

R.S.V.P. info@dance4oceans.org

 

1416 Electric Avenue, Venice, CA 90291 (310) 306-1854 livearts@electriclodge.org