Team Marine

This Thursday, March 20, our 2013-2014 Team Marine T-Shirts arrived in the mail from Custom Ink! Our T-shirts are also organic cotton and display our sponsor’s logos. Team Marine will now be sporting our new shirts to every event, including the POPS Youth Summit (see below) and our upcoming trip to Sacramento!

Thank you to our sponsors Wells Fargo, Jason Andrew,  the Alliance for Climate Education, Kristina von Hoffmann, Plug in America, Paul Scott, the Poon Fear Family, Mimi Fear, Russell Fear, Left Coast Electric, Trexa, QuikSCience, and the City of Santa Monica.  Also, thank you to Custom Ink for providing and helping out with the shirts!

On February 28, 2014 the third flush of the 2013-2014 school year occurred. Although the rain was much needed because of the drought, the horrendous amount of Styrofoam and plastic was not as welcomed. The vast amount of water that these rain storms created pushed out any remaining plastics that were stuck in the drains from the last storm as well as approximately a months worth of build up. There was an abundance of Styrofoam objects, as well as plastic water bottles and clear plastic bags. Thanks to the Santa Monica and Los Angeles bag ban though, the usual grocery store plastic bag was not as common as in previous flushes. However,  we found one of the new  “reusable”  black plastic bags that claimed to be keeping “So. Cal. Beautiful” laying right on the shore (see below). It was not a “beautiful” sight to see. We were on the beach for several hours picking up as many plastics and trash  possible. Seeing all the trash on the edges of the Pico-Kenter storm drain supported the frightening realization that it was only a fraction of what entered into the ocean. Fortunately, Team Marine prevented a total of three large bags of plastics and trash from polluting our beautiful coast.

On Saturday, February 8th, we were invited to Laguna Beach to panel and present to the community and local schools. We displayed our bottle cap and single-use-plastic eco-artwork. We also drove our recently converted all-electric vehicle “Volts Wattson”. While presenting with Generation Waking Up, the team was able to convey the science, effects, and solutions to climate change. Generation Waking Up also had a very interesting presentation that included the severity of water pollution and the scarcity clean of water. This event was critical in expanding eco-activism and outreach to other neighboring communities. The kids and people of the Laguna community were intrigued with our presentation explaining the science of climate change. This provided a better understanding of the wide scope and connections between plastic pollution, burning fossil fuels, carbon increase in the atmosphere, and ocean acidification. Thank you Ana, the event coordinator, for giving us this opportunity to eco-educate and eco-activate the people.

On Friday January 24th, Team Marine members called key California State Senators to advocate for a state wide plastic bag ban. We encouraged senators to vote yes on a plastic bag ban bill SB 405 using our previous research on the Santa Monica plastic bag ban, the effects of plastic pollution on marine life, and the economic benefits of a plastic bag ban. It is important for the senators to realize that the youth of California are in favor of this ban. Ninety cities and counties in California have previously banned plastic bags, but this statewide ban is an amazing step in the prevention of plastic pollution entering our oceans. The ban, which has previously failed to pass, is a bipartisan bill that will ban single use plastic bags in the state of California. Team Marine advocated not only for this ban, but for bans in Santa Monica and Los Angeles County as well. This plastic bag ban is a step in the right direction towards a more sustainable future.

Many cities across California are now banning the use of “single use carryout plastic bags” due to various environmental, economic, and health concerns. Plastic bag manufacturers are now pursuing various loopholes and green washing techniques in the bag ban laws as means to continue the use of their environment destroying chemically derived plastic bags. One example of this is in the Los Angeles County Bag Ban. Specific wording in the law defines “reusable” bags as being over 2.25 millimeters thick and capable of enduring at least 125 uses including withholding 22 pounds over a distance of 175 feet each use. While it is yet unclear whether these “reusable” plastic bags can withstand those conditions, most stores in the city of Los Angeles have satisfied the “single use plastic carryout bag ban” by providing their customers with these so called “reusable” bags. These range from anywhere between free to 15 cents. We realized that they most commonly sold for 10 cents each, putting them on par with the paper bags that were supposed to replace them, however, due to the wording in the law, which was intended to assist people in making them more environmentally minded, allows stores to provide customers with reusable bags for free. This was added in as a measure to try and assist, but it is now backfiring as the plastics industry and stores are now taking advantage of this loophole. Now instead of removing plastic bags, we have adapted to thicker plastic bags, which might be able to endure more uses but have even greater environmental consequences than the notorious thin, flimsy single use plastic bags. These bags are not “eco-friendly” as the plastic companies are making them out to be. These bags are just as harmful if not even worse on our environment and marine life. We are trying to advocate grocery store shoppers to always bring cloth, canvas, or other durable reusable bags and refuse the “eco-friendly” thicker plastic and also urge the city to close this loophole.

One way that Team Marine accomplishes reaching out to all the people that we do is by making eco-art that stands out and captures attention. With an upcoming event on February 8^th called the Green Valentine’s Festival (you’ll hear more about this later) we go through a series of procedures to ensure that we are fully prepared to display our art at the event. You may remember our “Rethink” sign made up entirely of around 10,000 bottle caps! We have also constructed a variety of marine mammals out of bottle caps such as: octopi, starfish, jellyfish, dolphins, crabs, and clams. However throughout the years these creations (as well as our “Rethink” sign) have been slightly worn down, so this year’s team marine is going through the process of repairing, reattaching, and in some cases completely reconstructing these creatures. With the great help of Mr. Kay’s Marine Biology class along with our own members, on the 17^th of January we organized an event to paper mache the “Rethink” sign and help fix our bottle cap animals. Although there was still much to be done afterwards, we got a great portion of the work done that day! With our members dedicating their time daily to getting this done we are sure to make the eco-art new and improved before we go to exhibit it at the Green Valentine’s Festival!

On New Year’s Day 2014, we had our annual recycling event at the Rose Bowl parade in Pasadena. We call this parade the gold mine of recyclables because every person has a drink or more with them. Unfortunately, we did come across some difficulties this year and almost couldn’t make it. Our usual partner school decided they weren’t going this year, so we had to jump some hurdles and pull some strings on short notice. We happen to be familiar with jumping hurdles on Team Marine and we managed to get out there with a huge van. We ran up and down the streets during the parade. We crawled under bleachers and dug into trash bags after the parade. By the time we finished collecting, we managed to fill up fifteen fifty-gallon bags and crammed them into our large van. Currently, we are estimating the amount to conservatively be 2,500 beverage containers. This event was very successful and will raise a lot of money for Water Solutions For Life to give LifeStraws to developing countries.