Hello everyone…  well it’s been 3 months since the end of my 30/30 Experiment in Huntington Beach.  I spent 1 hour a day for 30 days picking up trash on the shoreline.  I started at the River Jetty on the Newport/ Huntington border and ended up at the Bolsa Chica Inlet.  I collected 580.4 lbs of trash averaging 19.35 lbs of trash per day.

All my hard work has culminated with the creation of a Wave sculpture made of trash.  Tierney Moses and Hannah Cosner from Laguna College of Art and Design contacted me through a post I put up at the college.  They created a “Tidal Wave of Trash” made from the trash I collected on the beach. Check out their blog:  http://refurbishedrubbish.blogspot.com/ I did help separate the trash and build the frame for the wave but the girls worked countless hours on the wave.  I can never thank those ladies enough for all of the great work they did.  You rock girls.

The “Tidal Wave of Trash”  will debut at the 4th of July parade in Huntington Beach.  Thanks to Farmers and Merchants Bank, who is dedicated to the environment and sustainability, for entering the float into the parade. Thanks also to Huntington Beach Chevrolet who is letting us use a Hybrid vehicle to pull the float.

Come out and celebrate the 4th of July in Huntington Beach and check out the “Tidal Wave of Trash” float.  I hope to see you there.

I’ve finally reached my goal and I only missed 3 days for the month.  The only reason I missed those days was due to the tsunami warning and heavy rain that occurred last month.  My 1 hour today on Day 30 was a little lighter on debris than yesterday but any amount is good for the beaches.  I got 16.4 lbs of debris from the shoreline today in 1 hour.  This of course was my 30th hour and 30th day which totaled 580.4 lbs of debris from the shoreline.  This is an average of 19.35 lbs of trash per hour of cleanup.  Starting so far away from where I finished.  I traveled over 7 miles in the process from the Santa Ana River to the other side of the Bolsa Chica Inlet.  Even though my goal was to reach the end of Huntington Beach I really was moving as fast as the debris on the beach allowed me to.  The dent that I put in the pollution problem was replaced by more trash soon after I went by each area that I traveled. But although my dent was small, it did show everyone who followed how much trash is a small speck in relation to the problems up and down our coast in California.  I will not stop cleaning the beach or enjoying it’s waves as long as I have a pulse.  I hope that everyone can rally together to make a change in the massive amount of pollution that is flowing into our oceans everyday.  Let’s start by writing our government and adding pictures of the pollution first hand.  All it takes is one trip to the beach, a couple of bags for debris, and a camera for proof.  I pray that we all learned something from my experiment,  I know that I did…

Total= 580.4 lbs.        Average=19.35 lbs.  per hour

30 Days/30 hours Complete…

It’s April fools day today on my 29th day of cleanup.  I started at the North jetty wall rocks and worked my way North.  I was really surprised at the amount of debris there was on the beach here in Bolsa Chica.  A lot of  surfers come to this spot to catch waves everyday.  The trash on the beach had been here for a while until I got to it.  So it means that people walked through this trash on the way out to the lineup to surf.  I’m ashamed of all the locals who call this their spot and leave it looking like a dump.  I did a great job cleaning it up for them though.  My total weight was 26.7 lbs of trash for the hour.  I can’t believe that tomorrow is my last day of my experiment.  But I’ve done a lot to make a difference in my hour a day for a month.  I hope that people are more conscious and aware just a bit more because of  the sheer amount of debris I’ve collected.  Making a difference is for everyone who cares enough to send a message about ocean and beach pollution.  I hope to end this pollution using all of my voice and lead by example tactics to cause change in the way our rivers flow to the ocean.

Tomorrow is my last day and I’m looking forward to a little surf as well.  I think that the 1 hour tomorrow will be a little lighter than today but we will see.  Until my next blog…  Make a difference!