My friend, YA author Eric Luper, is running a little contest to help promote my COASTSWEEP cleanup event this weekend. Isn’t he the coolest?
So, come on down to Indian Lake in Worcester, Bay Staters. You can do your part to protect the planet, enter a raffle to win a free school visit from yours truly, and even win a bookplate for your copy of BIG SLICK. (I know, I know … I had you at “protect the planet”!)
Is it possible I haven’t updated the world (er, my blog world) on my Coastal Cleanup event?
Oi!
A brief reminder: I am sponsoring a coastal cleanup event, a la The Ocean Conservancy‘s International Coastal Cleanup (ICC) event, in central Massachusetts.
The original plan was for a small group of my family and friends to walk the shores of Indian Lake, collect trash, and record what we found. Our results would be reported to the Massachusetts ICC organizing group, COASTSWEEP, and combined with trash data from similar cleanups across the state. Those numbers, in turn, would be combined with trash data from the forty-nine other United States and then with data from the ninety-plus countries that participate in this massive effort to protect the world ocean.
The new plan is similar, except for the “small group of my family and friends” part. The cleanup has turned into a grand community extravaganza, thanks to the Indian Lake Watershed Association, the Worcester Department of Public Works & Parks, the Unitarian Universalist Church of Worcester, the Bancroft School and several local school and scouting groups. In addition to collecting and recording debris, we will be stenciling storm drains, brush clipping, mud scouring, sand raking, and performing a myriad of other lake maintenance activities. An entire community of people who live, work, or play in the Indian Lake neighborhood have committed to a day of caring for it … how cool is that?
In case you are in the area and cannot resist a party, here are the details:
Indian Lake Cleanup Event
Indian Lake
Worcester, Massachusetts
Sunday, October 28, 2007
10am to 2pm
Checkin at the corner of Shore Drive and Holden Street
Dress for MUD!
Participants in any COASTSWEEP cleanup event this year, including the Indian Lake event, are eligible for my TRACKING TRASH drawings, you can find more details here.
And you can find a formal press release describing the event here.
Okay, folks, here is a long-overdue COASTSWEEP update. (What’s that? You don’t know what COASTSWEEP is? Well, then, read this.)
My family and I are hosting a COASTSWEEP event in central Massachusetts on Sunday, October 21 from 10am to 2pm. We will be ridding the shores surrounding Indian Lake in Worcester, Massachusetts of all the debris we can get our grubby, little hands on. And we will be recording each and every item we collect so that the fine folks at The Ocean Conservancy can compile their annual International Coastal Cleanup Report. (You can see the 2006 report here.)
If you would like to participate in a Massachusetts cleanup, check out COASTSWEEP’s 2007 Cleanups page for information on events happening throughout the state this fall. And pay close attention to this letter to learn how you can win a signed copy of TRACKING TRASH or a visit from its, ahem, esteemed author …
When I was writing TRACKING TRASH and marveling at the magnitude of the marine debris problem, I felt strongly about finding something concrete that I could do–and that readers could do–to protect the ocean. What I found was Ocean Conservancy and their International Coastal Cleanup (ICC) events. If you’ve read TRACKING TRASH, you know about them already.
ICC events are not your run-of-the-mill beach cleanups. Held annually across the country and around the world, ICC events are mega beach-cleanups during which volunteers not only pick up trash, but they count it too. Yep, you read that right … they count it. Every September, volunteers don plastic gloves and comb shorelines carrying a trash bag and a collection sheet. Each and every cigarette butt, plastic straw, food wrapper, plastic bag and bottle cap is recorded on the collection sheet before it is dropped in the trash bag. In the past twenty years, 6.6 million ICC volunteers have removed 116 million pounds of debris from 211,460 miles of shoreline in 127 countries.
That is a lot of trash … but what’s up with the counting? Why count garbage? Well, because the numbers are POWERFUL. Let me give you an example.
If I tell you that cigarette butts are a big problem on beaches, you would probably nod and sigh. But if I told you that during the 2006 International Coastal Cleanup volunteers collected 1,901,519 cigarette butts, you might get a little outraged. And if I went on to tell you that during a one hour cleanup of a 1.5 mile stretch of California beach volunteers collected 6,300 cigarette butts, well, then you might support something like this. ICC numbers provide information, and that information helps citizens and conservation groups and lawmakers to address the problem of marine debris.
This year, I am hosting a cleanup event near my home in central Massachusetts. I am also participating in a special raffle for Massachusetts ICC volunteers. You can find out more about Massachusetts COASTSWEEP here and about the raffles here. And if you don’t live in Massachusetts, fear not. There is an ICC event near you; find it here.
COASTSWEEP, the annual coastal cleanup event in Massachusetts, is holding a Poster Contest … and you are invited to participate. Children in grades K-12 are eligible and the contest deadline is Wednesday, July 18. Prizes include T-shirts, passes to the New England Aquarium, and REI Outdoor School vouchers. One grand prize winning poster will even be included in COASTSWEEP 2007 promotional materials.
If you are a Massachusetts kid and you love the ocean and its wildlife, check out this contest.
If you live in Massachusetts but are too old to participate (like me!), check out the COASTSWEEP website to learn how you can protect our waterways and shorelines. Cleanup events are held throughout the fall and are a fabulous way for families and community groups to work together in honor of the planet.
If you live anywhere else in the world and want to know how YOU can get involved, visit The Ocean Conservancy to learn more about International Coastal Cleanup events being held across the country and around the world this fall.
Happy Monday!
I woke up to a message from the lovely (I am just sure she is lovely) Colleen Mondor telling me that she had featured TRACKING TRASH in her Booslut article and on her Chasing Ray website. This was a pleasant way to start the week. I was particularly pleased to read Colleen’s challenge to her readers:
“GO READ THIS BOOK! Then work on using less plastic and saving the ocean. Get busy folks, make this your number one summer project!”
Using less plastic can be easy. It sounds snarky, but you just, well, use less plastic. Especially the single-use, disposable kind (plastic cutlery and plastic baggies, for example). But saving the ocean? How does one actually do that? If you have read TRACKING TRASH, then you know that one way is to get involved in The Ocean Conservancy‘s International Coastal Cleanup. These beach cleanups are held all over the country–all over the world, actually–every September.
What’s that? You don’t actually live near the ocean? No worries. You can still get involved. I’m hosting an ICC event near my home in landlocked central Massachusetts this fall. Our waterways are all connected, so cleaning up an inland pond is just as important as cleaning up a coastal beach.
Stay tuned … I’ll be posting lots more information on coastal cleanups in the coming months. For now, go check out some of Colleen’s many, many book reviews. I’m heading back over there myself …
