Trash Trackers Prove Cleanups Are Effective

In the winter of 2010, San Diego CoastKeeper and I Love A Clean San Diego partnered together to start a new project called Trash Trackers. One year later, the results are in!

Trash Trackers began as a program to document our impact on the environment, and see how cleanups help in the long run. During the study, volunteers counted each piece of trash within a one-hundred foot stretch next to a local stream or creek. They cleaned the entire area and documented how many pieces, and what types, of trash they found. One year later, volunteers combed the same one-hundred foot stretch in order to find out how much more trash had accumulated within that time period due to either upstream accumulation or littering directly on site.

Thousands of Styrofoam pieces along the Otay River

So what did we find?

Each of our four sites – Otay River, San Diego River, Buena Vista Creek, and Chollas Creek – showed drastic decreases in the number of items found at the second cleanup. Whereas Otay River showed a 14.5% decrease, the San Diego River showed 63% less, Buena Vista Creek showed 68% less and Chollas Creek documented an amazing 74% less!

One area of Chollas Creek before cleanup

Even the biohazardous material was down an average of 27% at all of the sites.

Thanks to 700 volunteers over the last two years, this program removed 18,400 pounds of debris that otherwise may have ended up in our oceans. By removing this trash every year, we have direct evidence that our cleanup events not only remove debris from the immediate site, but they also help to ensure that in the future, the creeks are cleaner for everyone’s enjoyment.

"The Pit" along the San Diego River by Fashion Valley Mall

Here at I Love A Clean San Diego, we are dedicated to keeping our community clean! The implementation of the Trash Trackers program allows us to collect hard data that reveal the problems that ensue from littering in waterways. We hope that our actions and the photos above inspire individuals to take responsibly for their local environment and get involved in in preventing litter around our community. After all, don’t we all love a clean San Diego?

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!