Gas Station Sushi? Littering is Wrong Too!

Keep California Beautiful is launching a new anti-litter campaign and as their local partner here in San Diego, ILACSD is getting in on the action to help raise awareness about the issues created by litter in our communities.

Litter, can be seen throughout San Diego County and is an eyesore to our beautiful (and green) community. I Love A Clean San Diego attacks this problem with a two-pronged approach: prevention and removal.

We help prevent litter through our innovative and engaging education programs, as well as by providing the county’s only comprehensive, one stop recycling resource, WasteFreeSD.org. We’re also best know for our countywide cleanups, which include San Diego’s two largest cleanups: Creek to Bay on April 28, 2012, and Coastal Cleanup Day on September 15, 2012.

Litter invites more litter. Once litter has accumulated along a road or in a community, people are more likely to keep littering there. 80% of our waterways are littered with trash that was dropped on land, which is one reason our cleanups focus heavily on inland areas, not just the beaches.  If we want to protect ocean health and prevent marine debris we need to start inland. Do the right thing—by doing your part to prevent litter in California.

• Set a good example for your friends, kids and neighbors. Don’t litter! Even a banana peel is considered litter. Don’t think so? Imagine what the streets would look like if every resident dropped a banana peel or apple core on the same day!
• Place a bag in your car to collect personal trash (or recyclables) instead of tossing them.
• Secure the lids on your trash and recycling containers, especially when you set them out on collection day.
• When recycling at the curb, secure or bundle loose papers and other light objects tightly so they won’t get carried away with the wind.
• Remove loose trash from the back of your pickup truck.
• If you smoke, never leave your cigarette butts on the ground. Cigarette butts are the single most littered item found at our cleanups.
• Get involved in a community cleanup. Sign up for our monthly newsletter and be the first to know about upcoming events.

The campaign “Littering is Wrong Too” takes a lighthearted approach to bring awareness to a serious problem. The campaigns messages range from ironic:

To sad:

To things that make you say “That’s just wrong!”

Check out the campaign website, www.LitteringisWrongToo.org, to “write your own wrong” and see even more of the funny sayings others from around the country have posted. Think about other things that are wrong, like wearing Dodgers hat at a Padres Game, or Texting While Driving, to help us show that there are all kinds of things you wouldn’t do, and littering should be one of them!

Fill in the blank: _____ is wrong, and littering is wrong too!

ILACSD Staff Reaches New Heights

I Love A Clean San Diego Staff

For our January staff retreat this year, the I Love A Clean San Diego staff spent an afternoon at the Girl Scouts Adventure Zone in Balboa Park. The trained Adventure Zone staff led us in several team building and communications exercises topped off with the challenge of a 40 foot outdoor climbing wall!

Among other things, the challenges presented at the staff retreat helped us recognize each others unique skills and talents and fine tune the ways in which we communicate and work most effectively as a team.

See I Love A Clean San Diego staff reach new heights!

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Little Pieces Add Up at Cupid’s Cleanup

This past Valentine’s Day weekend, 214 volunteers participated in our Cupid’s Cleanup, our biggest turnout for this event ever! At first glance many of the volunteers probably thought this was going to be an easy cleanup, but they soon found that the seemingly spotless beach, park, and neighborhood areas surrounding Del Mar Powerhouse Park weren’t as clean as they appeared.

ILACSD Interns are setup and ready to clean.

Volunteers start combing the beach.

Upon closer inspection, our trash scavengers saw that the beach and park were littered with small pieces of styrofoam and plastic. They took the time and care to pick up these little pieces and as a result, 175 pounds of trash and 61 pounds of recycling were collected that morning!

Those aren't bits of seashell, they're bits of Styrofoam!

Check out our Facebook page for more photos from another successful Cupid’s Cleanup!

Volunteers really enjoyed the event, and we hope they’ll all be back on Saturday, April 28th, 2012 for our Creek to Bay Cleanup.  Creek to Bay is our signature event that spans 75+ inland and coastal sites throughout the county.  Last year, more than 5,300 dedicated volunteers participated in the event, breaking volunteer records and cleaning up more miles of beaches, canyons and parks than ever before.  See you there!

San Diego Needs Your Love this Valentine’s Day

We're showing the next generation of San Diegans how to care for our environment.

The staff and volunteers here at I Love A Clean San Diego work year-round to preserve the San Diego way of life that we all love. Our volunteers picked up 241 tons of trash last year, but there is still much more to be done to keep our city, it’s beaches, canyons, and parks beautiful and healthy for everyone to enjoy.

This Valentine’s Day, express your love for the environment by donating to I Love A Clean San Diego! Your support helps us continue to engage thousands of San Diegans in environmental events and educational programs that improve the quality of life in San Diego by caring for the natural environment. Every dollar counts, instead of buying gifts this year, here are suggestions for ways to show your love to San Diego today:

• Donate $5 instead of a box of chocolates
• Donate $10 instead of a cute teddy bear
• Donate $25 instead of a dozen roses

Our community depends on us to provide much needed environmental programs and we depend on supporters like you to keep those programs growing.

Donate Today!

Tell us why YOU love a clean San Diego on our Facebook page!

Get a Little Dirty This Valentine’s Day

Sometimes cleaning up our environment means we have to get a little dirty in the process, but that doesn’t stop our volunteers!

Cupid's Cleanup 2011

Each year around Valentine’s Day, I Love A Clean San Diego organizes the Cupid’s Cleanup as a way for eco-minded singles, couples, and friends to show their love for a clean San Diego by cleaning up an area of our local community. We put on smaller cleanups like Cupid’s each month in communities across San Diego county who have well, gotten a little dirty. We announced last week that in 2011 we mobilized more than 29,000 volunteers who picked up 241 tons of trash from our community’s beaches, waterways, canyons, and parks.

Why get dirty at these cleanups?

Events like Cupid’s cleanup are vital to the health of our local environment and are an important part of preserving the San Diego way of life that we all love so much. Keeping trash out of our ocean not only helps the animals who live there, but also makes it safer for all San Diego residents to swim, surf and play in our coastal waters. If left where it was, that 241 tons of trash would have eventually made it’s way into our waterways and ultimately into the ocean. Who wants to hang out near a big batch of trash soup?

In addition to smaller monthly cleanups, ILACSD coordinates two of the largest countywide cleanup events each year, our signature event the Creek to Bay Cleanup coming up on April 28th, 2012, as well as Coastal Cleanup Day on September 15, 2012. This gives San Diego residents various volunteer options and they see first-hand how trash makes its way from inland communities all the way to the coast through San Diego County’s vast watershed system.

To sign up for Cupid’s Cleanup contact our Community Events Coordinator, Jemma at jdeleon@cleansd.org or at 619.704.2778 today!

Can’t make it to Cupid’s but want to find out about other upcoming events? Sign up for our monthly e-newsletter!

ILACSD Cleans Up in 2011

After a stellar 2010 which saw our programs grow here at I Love A Clean San Diego, we set our sights on increasing effectiveness in 2011. Focusing on quality, awareness and sustainability, we have exciting results to announce from our 58^th year of love for a clean San Diego!

Our Education Department continued its effective education programs, engaging a total of 30,835 youth and adults in 2011.

Our Educator, Alex, teaching kids about the importance of recycling

This is a slight increase from 2010, but in 2011 our focus was on making education more engaging and interactive. We used new assessment tools that showed that 39% of students who received our presentations were more likely to personally take action to prevent pollution based on their newly acquired environmental knowledge. 

Our Community Events Department continued to make strong impacts on San Diego County, mobilizing 29,000 volunteers to remove 241 tons of trash from the local environment.

 

This year, we focused on enhancing participants experience and ensuring strong volunteer retention. The addition of beautification service projects and education opportunities resulted in 100% of surveyed volunteers responding that they would attend another ILACSD volunteer event in the future.

“I loved being able to assist the environment in a hands-on way. It made me very aware of where the trash goes.” – Clean Canyons for a Clean Coast Volunteer

WasteFreeSD.org, our one stop recycling resource, continued to provide accurate referrals to San Diego County residents on how to dispose of or recycle 19,000 items.

WasteFreeSD.org provides residents with information on recycling and proper disposal of hazardous items, diverting countless amounts of waste from San Diego’s landfills, and preventing illegal dumping in our communities. We experienced a 14% increase in requests for information through our website, www.WasteFreeSD.org. Recent partnership expansions with local jurisdictions will ensure that this integral piece of our environmental programming will continue to assist the public in making responsible disposal decisions.

In 2012 we plan to focus our efforts on expanding our influence, increasing our impact by integrating our programs and our continued leadership in protecting and enhancing San Diego County’s unique environment.

Save the date for the 10^th anniversary of our Creek to Bay Cleanup, April 28, 2012! See you there!

Why Should You Recycle Your Used Oil Filter?

Local resident recycling her used oil filter

Did you know that one used oil filter has an average of 10 fluid ounces of motor oil trapped inside it?

Many people know that they can and should recycle their used motor oil, but they may not know that your used oil filter also contains used motor oil, as well as steel, both of which can be recycled so that they don’t contaminate our local environment and take up space in local landfills.   CalRecycle reports that more than two million gallons of motor oil from these filters are being disposed of improperly each year in California. Recycled used motor oil can be re-refined and used again, ensuring that it doesn’t contaminate our local waterways.  It only takes one gallon of used oil to contaminate one million gallons of drinking water!

I Love A Clean San Diego has partnered with cities in the area to provide an incentive to residents to properly dispose of used oil filters by providing a replacement filter for free when they bring their old filters to one of the events below.

If you can’t attend one of these events, there are more than 300 locations in San Diego County that accept used oil filters year-round for recycling at no charge. These locations, most of them auto parts and repair stores known as Certified Collection Centers, will also accept up to five gallons of used motor oil at no charge. In addition, Certified Collection Centers will pay residents 40 cents per gallon of used motor oil, upon request. Motor oil can’t be contaminated with water or other liquids such as antifreeze, solvents, or gasoline. If you have contaminated motor oil or more than five gallons of non-contaminated motor oil, you must visit a household hazardous waste collection facility.

For more information on where to recycle used motor oil and oil filters, visit I Love A Clean San Diego’s one stop recycling resource, WasteFreeSD.org. We encourage all San Diegans to visit our recycling website to learn more about similar events held countywide!

Upcoming Oil Filter Exchange Events:

Bring your old filter and receive a new one for free! Limit one free filter per person.

Chula Vista
Saturday, January 28, 2012 from 9am – 1pm
Pep Boys at 454 Broadway Ave.

El Cajon
Saturday, February 4, 2012 from 9am – 1pm
Pep Boys at 201 Jamacha Rd.

Santee
Saturday, February 11, 2012 from 9am – 1pm
Pep Boys at 10041 Mission Gorge Rd.

Lemon Grove
Saturday February 18, 2012 from 9am – 1pm
O’Reilly Auto Parts at 6925 Federal Blvd.

La Mesa
Saturday February 25, 2012 from 9am – 1pm
O’Reilly Auto Parts at 5350 Jackson Dr.

National City
Saturday March 3, 2012 from 9am – 1pm
O’Reilly Auto Parts at 1202 E. Plaza Blvd.

Intern Focus: Christina, Community Events Intern

Christina Diette came to I Love A Clean San Diego in September 2011 looking to gain experience in event coordination and make use of a love for the outdoors that she gained growing up in a rural community.  Since her start as the Community Events Intern, she has attended six outreach events and cleanups, and has spent countless hours in the office helping with event preparation, volunteer recruitment, and program maintenance.

Christina, right, with ILACSD staff at an outreach event

My father often tells me that he doesn’t know what he wants to be when he grows up. Somehow, I seem to have gained the same mentality. Almost three years after earning my undergraduate degree in History, I have yet to determine what I want to be when I grow up. With our current economy making it hard for graduates such as myself to find careers pertaining to our degrees, the world may still hold opportunities to travel down a rewarding path. Over the past four months, that path in my life has been with I Love A Clean San Diego.

According to Daniel Pink in his book Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, people are more motivated and satisfied in their work lives if they believe they are working for a purpose greater than themselves. As an intern at ILACSD, I do believe I am working toward a greater cause. With every email I send asking for volunteers and with every early Saturday morning I spend checking in volunteers at clean-up sites, I am making a difference in this organization’s ability to fulfill its mission to help the community learn about and participate in enhancing our local environment.

My experience at ILACSD has been varied and eye opening. I have had the opportunity to see firsthand the extreme amount of refuse that ends up in the Tijuana River. I helped young children recognize the difference between trash and recyclables at a street fair. I spent an evening at a mixer surrounded by eco-conscious locals and vendors on the rooftop of a green-certified hotel, and walked the streets of Pacific Beach counting cigarette butts to determine the success of the organization’s Cigarette Litter Prevention Program. I have always recycled, but this internship has showed me just how many more ways one can help make a difference.

Like my father, I may not know what I want to be when I grow up. I do know, however, that continuing to live an environmentally responsible lifestyle is a priority, wherever life takes me. Making a difference, however small, is the opportunity that ILACSD has afforded me and what I have learned here will stay with me always.

Environmental Education and Our Nearby Nature Program

Education plays a large part in our mission to actively conserve and enhance the environment here in San Diego. Each year, we conduct a variety of outreach programs to educate youth in the San Diego region about properly conserving our local environment. This helps guide them in developing good habits at a young age, that then become part of daily life and ultimately result in a healthier, cleaner, and more vibrant San Diego for future generations.

We believe that the best way to educate today’s youth is to emerge them in hands-on activities. We want to instill a lifelong appreciation for the local environment by providing opportunities to cultivate a greater sense of responsibility for protecting it.

We provide environmental education and community outreach programs for elementary, middle, and high schools, as well as youth groups. Our Educators uses a variety of media, including presentations, storytelling, and hands-on demonstrations to teach topics such as: 

• Reduce, Reuse, Recycle
• Household Hazardous Waste
• Litter Reduction
• Used Oil Recycling
• Ocean and Water Pollution Prevention
• Watershed Education

We also offer an opportunity to expand their knowledge through place-based learning and nearby nature field trips, which have been proven more effective at instilling environmental knowledge among youth.

After the education in the classroom, we lead them in a service project in their local community, such as trash removal, habitat restoration, and storm drain stenciling to restore local waterways!  We also coordinate nearby nature field trips, where children can better understand and value the nature surrounding them every day. While many adults are able to give an account of a time when they experienced nature as a child, most of today’s children cannot (71% of adults vs. 26% youth according to a study by Manhattanville College conducted in 2004).

By educating our local youth about how they can help preserve our environment, the program will build a stronger sense of community pride and improve San Diego’s natural environment. A cleaner environment means a healthy community, which will improve the lives of all San Diego residents!

Are you a classroom teacher in a grade 3-6? Would you like a Nearby Nature experience for your grade level team? I Love A Clean San Diego is offering two lucky schools the opportunity to participate in Nearby Nature education programs!

What is Nearby Nature?

Educators will lead your entire grade level on walking field trips to your nearest “nature” area, providing guided hikes and standards based outdoor learning activities. This is an excellent opportunity for your students to experience nature firsthand! If you are interested or have questions, please send an email to education@cleansd.org today!

Nature education improves academic performance. When the environment is used as an integrating context for learning the school curriculum, students have shown better performance on standardized measures of academic achievement in reading, writing, math, social studies, and science. Additionally, teachers have seen reduced discipline and classroom management problems and increased engagement and enthusiasm for learning. Nature experiences help children develop a sense of place in their community and increase awareness of San Diego County habitats. Nature education programs can also increase environmentally responsible behavior, including students’ perceived knowledge of issues and action, environmental sensitivity, and intention to act. – Source: San Diego Children & Nature’s “Nearby Nature School Field Trips” Guidebook

Make a Recycling Resolution

It’s the beginning of a brand new year and many people are setting their new year’s resolutions, all the things they want to accomplish and improve on in the coming year. If you’re reading our blog, protecting the Earth is probably already high on your priority list, so this year make a resolution to help our local environment by increasing your recycling in 2012. We don’t just mean recycling paper, card board and bottles, there are many things you’re likely going to come across throughout the year that you may want to get rid of. Before you trash them, check our database www.wastefreesd.org to see if they can be recycled or disposed of properly so that they don’t take up space or contaminate our environment in a landfill.

Here are a few things to remember to recycle throughout the year:

Winter

The holiday season is a time of giving and receiving. New electronics and new toys most likely means you’ll be getting rid of old ones. There are many options for recycling your electronic waste, and now you can even recycle plastic toys in your regular recycling bins!

Spring

Time for spring cleaning! There are a million little things (and some big things!) you’ll want to throw away while you’re cleaning out your house, garage, or storage unit. Things like paint, used batteries and other household waste should not be thrown in your trash. Even if they can’t be recycled, there are places you can take them where they can be properly disposed of.

Summer

Broken surf board? Old flip flops? Wine corks from that batch of sangria? All can be recycled!

Fall

It’s football season which probably means tailgating or backyard BBQs. Don’t forget to collect and recycle your beer and soda cans or bottles and be sure to use reusable plates and cups! If you’re doing yard work, yard and wood waste can also be recycled.

Household Hazardous Waste Tips:

If you live in the unincorporated ares of San Diego County, another easy option to dispose of items that can’t be recycled but are still hazardous to the environment is to bring them to the Household Hazardous Waste Collection Event on January 7^th from 9am to 3pm at Ingold Sports Park (2551 Olive Hill Rd. Fallbrook, CA 92028).

They will be accepting household hazardous waste, electronics, sharps and medications. Items NOT accepted: Business waste, tires, ammunition, explosive and radioactive materials, air conditioners or large appliances.

• Transportation requirements of household hazardous waste: Leave products in existing container, if possible. Make sure lids are on tight so containers will not leak. Transport containers in the trunk or in back of the vehicle away from passengers and pets.
• Do not transport over 15 gallons or 125 pounds of household hazardous waste at one time. Containers used for transport must be no larger than a 5-gallon bucket.
• Note: Only Five (5) televisions or computer monitors per car will be accepted, in addition to household hazardous, electronic and universal waste.

The next Free Household Hazardous Waste Collection Event on March 10^th! They can also find more information on our one-stop recycling resource by searching for the waste category “household hazardous waste collection event”.