Heal the Bay Blog

If you celebrate Christmas, but mourn the environmental impacts of all those packages, paper and plastic scraps and shipped-in Douglas Firs, we have the answer for you!  There’s an awesome company called The Living Christmas Co. that rents living Christmas trees. They’ll deliver them and pick them up, all through the LA area, and you can even arrange to have the same tree year after year.  They also have an online eco-friendly holiday decor store.  What an awesome way to try to keep Christmas as earth-friendly as possible. So pick up that tofurkey, give out handmade gifts, and rent a living Christmas tree!

In an incredible vote, the LA County Board of Supervisors voted yesterday to ban the distribution of plastic bags throughout all of unincorporated LA County. This landmark ruling is an example for the state, and municipalities all over the country. Read more on Mark Gold’s blog, Spouting Off, or check out Heal the Bay’s press release.

In an interesting twist, Los Angeles County is the new statewide leader on breaking Californians’ 19-billion-a-year addiction to single-use shopping bags. The Board of Supervisors voted 3-1 today to ban plastic and paper bags in unincorporated areas of the county and allow grocery stores, drug stores and convenience stores to charge a dime for green paper bags. The ordinance is the farthest-reaching bag ban ordinance in California and should result in a 600 million-bag-a-year reduction in the county.

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We all deserve to swim in clean water. But everyone needs clean drinking water too. In many parts of the world, clean water is an absolute luxury, and the lack of clean water leads to disease and death. But here in California, there are towns where the over-use of nitrate fertilizers has led to contaminated water supplies. Literally, people’s faucets are pouring out water that is absolutely undrinkable because of the high levels of nitrates.  Read more about it in the LA Times.

Last weekend the Plastic Pollution Coalition hosted a TEDx event in Santa Monica on the Not So Great Pacific Garbage Patch. The gathering was well attended by celebrities (Jackson Browne, Ben Lear, Daphne Zuniga and Ed Begley Jr.), explorers (Dr. Sylvia Earle, Charlie Moore, Fabien Cousteau and David De Rothschild) and numerous other environmental leaders fighting against the scourge of plastic pollution. The well-produced evening beamed via webcast globally and included a blend of dramatic footage from plastic contaminated gyres (including a short film from the 5 Gyres expeditions from Marcus Ericsen and Anna Cummins), performances from Lear, Browne and others, and solutions-oriented talks from such Heal the Bay friends as Long Beach Vice Mayor Suja Lowenthal, Lisa Boyle and Leslie Tamminen.

Attendees also saw the unveiling of an ad campaign from Leo Burnett that asks people to become citizens of the Crapola Islands (also known as the Pacific Garbage Patch) – the only nation we want to disappear. Two speakers presented potential solutions that won’t have a positive impact on the global marine debris crisis. Patrick Kenney of Green Harvest Technologies spoke about a green future with bioplastics. Although there are many eco-advantages to bioplastics, especially in areas with effective composting programs, solving the plastic pollution problems in our oceans is not one of them.

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