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?!?

39 balloons and one dolphin - what did the ocean receive for Valentines Day!?!

I often wonder how people can hunt whale, hunt turtle, or hunt shark - what overcomes them to track magnificent animals and kill them for particular parts of their body; "parts" that are economically valued higher than the "whole" animal's ecological and social value to Earth. While running along the Santa Monica shoreline tonight, I soaked in a dose of such predatory adrenaline as I hunted plastic balloons - washed up to the beach and resting like deflated sea lions. In front of Pier 26, I watched the first balloon make its way to shore from about 20 yards out at sea - surfing the waves, searching for dry land. And at Pier 28 about twenty minutes later, I watched a hunted dolphin make the same journey - in whole.

First, the balloon - I placed it in a nearby trash can where two other balloons were captive. Three balloons! I run this beach often and find drinking straws, bottle caps, cigarette butts, but never three balloons in such close proximity.

Ahhh, Valentines Day!!

Four days ago these balloons served as gifts of love and compassion, their recipients silently attached dreams and let go - watching the balloon float away, praying the dream would find its reality. However, the balloon floats a few miles above ground, begins to deflate, gravity does the rest - and in the end only finds my wet feet.

Unfortunately, the three balloons turned to 10 then to 16 - it was amazing, I was hunting!! My heart raced, my eyes scanned for more and more plastic balloons and my legs hastened to chase them down and scoop them off the beach. I ended up with 39 in total within 250 yards of the Santa Monica/Venice shoreline. I gathered my last clump of about 23 and marveled at the assortment: red ones printed with "I love you," an orange one with "Happy Birthday," a clear one with red writing, "Be Mine." I then realized this grouping of puffed-up plastics was not the "killed," but the "killers." Balloons, along with other plastics, strangle seabirds and sea lions, get eaten by whales and dolphins, eventually degrade and threaten our food supply. Indeed, cupid's arrow signifies so much more now.

I had to stop and catch my breath after shoving the last 23 in the trash can, before turning around and heading back to where I started, and then home. Almost dark, would I stumble upon any newly washed ashore balloons? Fortunately, no more - but just there, what is that in the waves? sloshing back and forth...a freshly deceased Common dolphin. What an unfortunate, yet invigorating evening - I have hunted both balloon and dolphin. In ankle high water, the dolphin attempts to find some solid ground. But only after alerted lifeguards pull her out of the water is she resting - her dorsal fin covered with the same sand that hides my toes. She will be picked up in the morning by the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles to be autopsied. The lifeguards mentioned that they rarely do this, but I spoke with the Marine Mammal Center and unfortunately several dolphins have been pulled in the last few weeks.

What will be her cause-of-death? A plastic balloon clogging her intestines, nasty pollutants spawning cancers? I will follow this dolphin and report back.

But as the dolphin traveled away from me, I recollected the 39 balloons that I tracked - and wondered at a coincidence? Funny how we watch Whale Wars and the Cove and condemn the Japanese for hunting whale and dolphin with harpoon, yet each day we continue our Gulpable lifestyle of disposable plastics and toxic chemicals, we all hunt them the same with our disconnected waste, our pollutants, our greed - even our compassion, on this post-Valentines day.

lighter, golf ball, & toothbrush

In talking to family and friends about the "gulpable" plastic in the ocean that often ends up in the stomach of marine wildlife (most notably the images of dead baby albatrosses on Midway Atoll), one family member asked astonished, "How does a golf ball and toothbrush end up all the way out there?"

A few days after that question, I interestingly stumbled upon a golf ball and toothbrush just inches away from plunging down a Santa Monica storm drain - no doubt on their way to meet our Midway friends.


And today, during a walk along Melrose (between Fairfax and La Cienega) in West Hollywood, this cigarette lighter looked up at me. With rain in the weekly forecast, off it goes - to kill.


Yes, I picked it up - but I couldn't clean every adjacent cigarette butt and drinking straw. Also, I walked over nine blocks and there was not one trash can or ash receptacle. Litter is definitely not the cities fault, but research says the more trash cans present, the less litter...

in need of rescue

On a brief trip to San Francisco for New Years Eve, I confirmed the reports that "sea lion packed Pier 39" was unusually empty! However, on the evening of January 1st, one large male sea lion remained at the dock - suffering. He was suffocating - strangled with fishing line (or plastic wire of some sort) around his neck and snout.


A group of tourists watched as the sea lion fought for every breath, and news reporters and their cameras publicized the general concern of the assembled crowd. A passionate few phoned the Marine Mammal Center to alert them of a needed rescue, but subsequently criticized Erin Brodie, the centers on-duty representative, for deciding not to launch a rescue until morning (because of animal and human safety).

I was shocked at how some lashed out at Erin, called PETA as if to motivate her to launch a night rescue - some "out of towners" were even devising plans to rescue the animal themselves (sneaking up on a wild animal in distress and snipping off fishing wire did not seem like a realistic plan of action to me! considering the plastic line had most likely grown into the skin and was in need of surgical removal!)

On the first night of the new year, when hundreds of resident sea lions had departed Pier 39 - one injured remained on the dock nearest to the pier - sending a message. The message is not one criticizing the plans of dedicated rescuers - the message is one of education regarding trash and plastics in the oceans (and other human impacts on wildlife).

While I was upbeat at the outpouring of support for the suffering animal, I was disheartened to see many of the onlookers throw their cigarette butts directly onto the pier - and then counting the amount of waste and plastic in the gutters near the pier on my walk back to the hotel. We may not be able to save that brave sea lion (who jumped off the dock and swam away around 7am the next morning) - but we can look to ourselves, shoulder the blame for our gulpable life, and prevent future wildlife/ecosystem impacts.

My appreciation goes to all those involved that evening (even those with crazy ideas) - maybe this will propel us to educate ourselves a little more and act; main appreciation goes to Erin Brodie of the Marine Mammal Center for turning a tense situation into an educational one - not to mention her every day, on-the-ground work.

2010

This year - May we use less, yet have More...

(all bits collected from 25 min. walk on Santa Monica shoreline)

Happy Holidays!!

I created this “plastic snowman” after scavenging a very short stretch of shoreline in Santa Monica. The arms are made of two 'easy angle floss picks' - interestingly, I had never come upon these before but found two this one afternoon.

Should we "floss the sea" - or just the little, personal grime that disconnects...

Our Gulpable Lifestyle

Take a few minutes and watch this clip from Morgan Hoesterey on Midway Atoll, its reveals our "gulpable" lifestyle and the impact it has on other living beings...



and this is a recent photo from Chris Jordan of a Laysan Albatross (on Midway Atoll as well)...let's stop feeding the birds!


Items of note: cigarette lighter, plastic bottle caps