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...

theBaitTank in action!

After 165 butts were discovered littered in front of the Enterprise Fish Co in Santa Monica (see previous post), the management allowed me to setup theBaitTank, a new cigarette receptacle, to test the waters...



It was a success, and theBaitTank was well received - it actually attracted smokers, even from 25 yards away. I firmly feel that people (this case smokers) want to do the right thing - we just need to give them the opportunity...I look forward to your thoughts and comments.

the Fish Enterprise

I picked up 165 fresh cigarette butts in front of the Enterprise Fish Co. - just a couple blocks from the ocean in Santa Monica.




I have been trying to get in touch with a decision-maker at the restaurant so I can help them clean it up and prevent it from happening again...

Tap Water Delivers

May 2nd to the 8th was National Drinking Water Week!?

My father tore out this Announcement from one of his journals:

Pretty interesting - highlights how lucky we in the US are, but underscores the challenges and needed investment to keep public water safe and healthy into the future -

I really take for granted the drinking water that flows out of my kitchen/bathroom faucet, my shower, my toilet -

Maybe we should work to keep water flowing cleanly through our taps rather than through the "market"...

the Smoking Fish

It is well publicized that cigarette butts are the most prevalent litter item found on US streets and beaches. Anyone who looks down as they stride Main Street or their nearest shoreline would agree. Not only are they unsightly, but their filters are made of a plastic, that, yep, never goes away! And now - as of a few months ago (confirming my ignorance), I was unaware of the deadliness that remains trapped within these tossed-aside cigarette butts - "they are just paper!" But a recent in-home science project (as well as sound university research) has proven that they are indeed more than "just paper." When welcomed by bodies of water (rivers, lakes, oceans), cigarette butts spew a deadly dose of toxins that no human (or fish) would want to swim in (let alone drink)!

Ten days ago, I asked myself why I continue to walk the beach and pickup litter - when I could just walk outside my front door, pickup litter, and prevent it from even reaching the open ocean and (on limited occasion) eventually the shoreline. My good friend @easytowrite actually helped me realize this when he picked up enough litter to fill a large garbage bag - just on his residential street near Fairfax and Melrose in Los Angeles. This "urban cleanup" intrigued me even more when dealing with cigarette butts as it would prevent them from touching any water and leaching their nastiness at all.

That day I walked towards the ocean on Ocean Park Blvd in Santa Monica from 7th Street until I reached the beginning of the sand at Santa Monica beach - Google puts it at about 10 blocks or 0.6 miles. I only picked up cigarette butts on one side of the street from either the gutter or sidewalk - 344 cigarette butts in total! I thought that was quite a lot - 57 every 10^th of a mile! In Santa Monica, CA! I brought them home, counted them, and separated them into three piles: (a) fresh ones - still firm and round (b) weathered ones - flattened with fraying paper and (c) frayed filters. I then filled four Ziplock bags with three cups of water and placed 25 cigarette butts of type (a), (b), and (c) in the bags. I put nothing in bag four - my control. Magic began to happen right away.

In bag (a), a rich red molasses-color began to snake from the butts and dye the water a burnt orange. Bags (b) and (c) followed suit, although their colors were not as vibrant as bag (a). Without knowing what chemicals were actually contaminating the water, I was disgusted and alarmed. I would never want to swim and surf in this muck! But at least I have a choice to swim or not - we force this spew on fish, birds, mammals, other living things - the entire ecosystem (even the planters, soil, and plants from where I picked up most cigarette butts). In fact scientists from San Diego State University ran much more scientific tests and found that the leaching toxins kill fish!!!! http://www.cigwaste.org/index.php/Research/#toxicity

Smoke all you want people, but when you start killing fish - no bueno!

Here is a photo of the water from bag (a), four days after soaking. I filtered the butts out and transferred into jars.

Today - 10 days after clearing Ocean Park Blvd of cigarette butts - I walked the same exact path and picked up 239 cigarette butts!! and most were of type (a) mentioned above - fresh ones.

We as humans must evolve our culture and restore the connections to other living beings...Will this only happen when all the fish have been smoked out?!?