hey Enterprise Fish Co!

(originally posted September 1, 2010)

Hi Enterprise Fish Co – I found 52 butts in front of your Santa Monica seafood restaurant the other day!



I know you are open to addressing this problem – so lets talk (again)!

Joie de Vivre Gives

(originally posted August 18, 2010)

Since I did a Surfrider beach cleanup with some staff from Hotel Erwin in Venice, CA a few months back – I have been very impressed with the commitment that Joie de Vivre Hospitality has to beach cleanups in their community, and also to Surfrider Foundation (see www.jdvgives.com). Frankly, it has made me want to stay at their unique California hotels.

I have had them in my mind for some of my projects – and now after this morning, theBaitTank seems perfect for them…

After a morning bike ride through Santa Monica and Venice, I stopped to do a quick cigarette butt collection – I decided on Hotel Erwin. I walked the perimeter of their building, not venturing more than two feet from their walls. To my amazement I picked up 426 cigarette butts!!



This is a lot of unsightly mess, and a lot of dead fish – just a stones throw from the coast. Something that costs JDV a lot of money in maintenance (and other intangibles…)

Now granted, not all of the blame is on Hotel Erwin and JDV – but it presents them with a HUGE opportunity to directly stop the upstream pollution that plagues communities and oceans – just the thing they are trying to cleanup on their Surfrider outings...

theBaitTank is a cool receptacle that attracts cigarette butts and educates impacts – they would look great at Hotel Erwin and other JDV hotels – and I hope to find someone soon within the organization to discuss how I (and theBaitTank) can help...(maybe I will even get to meet Chip Conley, the founder, whose book PEAK is on my stack of books to read!)

For the oceans!!

-Mark

Collecting butts in Capitola and Santa Cruz

(originally posted on August 9, 2010)

Over the last 10 days, several BaitTanks were installed in the beautiful coastal cities Capitola and Santa Cruz in California. All had captured several cigarette butts in the few days of operation and I overhead people reading the text “Save some fish, Feed me Butts” out loud. I even heard a few 7 yr old Junior Lifeguards discussing the problem of cigarette butts on the beach!! wow

This project was initiated by Save Our Shores, an amazing marine conservation group (www.saveourshores.org), and funded by the California Coastal Conservancy. The cities of Capitola and Santa Cruz are also taking a leadership role in addressing the several economic, ecological, and social impacts of cigarette litter.

Here are some photos of theBaitTank – lets turn littered cigarette butts from polluting/killing into collected cigarette butts as protecting/saving...