Paper or Plastic? Doubled?

Now there's a question we've all heard many times as we go through the check out at the local grocery store. My question to you is... Are you able to answer "neither, use mine"?

If not, then here is another way to start living "Super Green". Most grocery stores (in California anyway) now sell reusable sacks for around a buck a piece, you buy 3-5 of these and help put an end to the roughly 6 billion plastic bags used each year in Los Angeles County alone (thank you "anonymous" for setting me straight on those numbers).

This, like recycling, is only going to have an impact if millions of people start doing it, so don't forget to get yours. By the way, Trader Joes has much nicer cloth bags for sale, pricier for sure, but they will last even longer and that is the point after all, and on top of that, when you bring those into your local grocery store it serves as a subtle reminder that you the consumer has options, and if they don't get with the program, you may start doing more shopping at stores that are more ecologically minded.

One final note, just in case you're thinking "this doesn't apply to me, I bring my plastic bags back to the store and stick them in the recycle bin out front", well forget it, only 5% of the bags get recycled. Besides, if most people going through the line were carrying their own bags, the rest of the people will hopefully see the err of their ways and get on board. So just do it, buy the bags and remember to bring them with you.

Composting for Dummies

I realized I was turning this blog into a crusade to save Bologna creek, which I will still pursue relentlessly, but I don't want to stray too far from the real point of... Living Green.

So I will share the amateur's guide with you since I (we) are beginners ourselves. One thing we put off for a long time, for no good reason was getting a composter. Talk about easy to do! Here it is in a few easy steps:

1) Go to your City's website, they all have one, and within minutes you will be able to find out where you can go pick up your composter for about $25-$30.
2) Snap it together in about 5 minutes or less.
3) Find a flat spot in your backyard where it won't be too much of an eyesore (ours is black plastic so it's not exactly attractive).
4) Then screw it to the ground with the three plastic earth screws provided in the kit. If the ground is tough, grab a hammer and a long screw driver and pilot a hole with that first.

That's it, you're ready to start reducing landfill while generating you're own free, environmentally safe, chemical free compost for your lawn and garden that far out performs the expensive mulch in a very large, heavy-duty plastic bag that's going to sit in a landfill for few hundred years.

Just fill it up with yard trimmings and everything you'd normally put in your sink garbage disposer and/or trash can, with the exception of animal products or waste. Add a little water and stir occasionally.

Stay tuned for more tips for Living Green in our disposable world.

A beautiful day for ugly pictures

I looked out the window this morning and said to myself "what a beautiful day to ride to work, I bet I'll see some wildlife down at the river today." So, since I was feeling mostly recovered from the nasty cold I came down with on Sunday, I decided to pack my camera in my backpack and hit the road on my bike. When I pulled up the the bike path along side Ballona Creek, I was floored, it was the most floating pollution I'd seen to date. This is a three shot sequence panning from right to left...

The pictures speak for themselves, and in this next picture, the bridge off just in the distance, is no more then a hundred yards from the river's mouth, this trash will no doubt enter the ocean, and soon. The really sad part is, this could have been avoided, rumor has it that the net I mentioned in a previous entry broke because it wasn't emptied soon enough.

Flushed Away!

I have to say, I'm almost impressed... On my ride home today I saw some City workmen stretching a net across the creek in anticipation of pending rain tomorrow. This is hardly what I would consider an effort to clean the river, and considering the mesh of the net was not very small so it's not going to catch small debris, but if we do get a decent downpour tomorrow as forecasted, it will catch a good amount of larger debris and plastic bags that otherwise would have streamed out into the Santa Monica Bay.

Of course all of the scum and bacteria already in the river, and all the oil and other contaminants that are going to be washed of the streets and right into the street drains are going to flush right on into the ocean, but let's give them credit for spending all of five minutes putting up a net to catch the debris.

If that didn't sound sarcastic it was supposed to. If it rains, and if I can manage to pull it off with work, I'm going to try to drive down to where the river meets the ocean in my raincoat and try to get pictures of the water coming out of the river so you can see how polluted the water coming way upstream is because the tide doesn't go that far upstream to flush it out.

A New Direction

A couple of months ago I decided to stop pretending I'm living green and start actually doing it. Sure, I was recycling, and I drove a somewhat environmentally friendly automobile, but I wasn't really living green.

I lucked into a job close to home, which reduced my commute significantly, but I was still driving to work, so I was not only NOT doing much more then anyone else is to reduce emissions, I wasn't doing anything to reduce my ever growing waistline!

So, in an effort to possibly do a little something to reduce my contribution to global warming, I decided to ride my bike to work no less then three days a week. What a novel idea, I can reduce emissions and my waistline at the same time. Gee, who'd a thought?

But then something unexpected happened, something I didn't see coming; after riding in traffic a few weeks I realized reducing my waistline wasn't going to do me any good if I get hit by one of these insane drivers rushing to work. So I found a longer more scenic route to take, a bike path with no cars, imagine that.

At first, my new path was very invigorating, no car exhaust, and beautiful birds all along the bike path which skirts Ballona Creek in Marina Del Rey. I thought to myself, "man, I should bring a camera in my backpack, there's some incredible wildlife here". So I did, and I also started getting on the bike path further inland, but when I slowed down to take pictures, I got a better look at the water. And what I saw shocked the hell out me. It was as polluted as, if not more than the LA River. And this so called "creek" is fifty feet across if it's an inch, and I couldn't be any more then a half mile from where it empties into Santa Monica Bay.

I was physically upset and instantly appalled by the fact that the City of Los Angeles and the State of California could just turn their backs on this problem. Oh but wait, what about the painted warnings on the curb where the street drains are? And what about the signs they put up along the creek that lets people know that it flows to the ocean? Get real man, what the hell is that gonna do? Do they really think that will stop people from dropping trash on the streets? Or stop grocery stores from using 1.4 billion plastic bags a year? Just look at this creek and the L.A. River and you'll get the answer... NO!

I counted fourteen plastic bags, two plastic bottles, and four shopping carts in the creek today alone. That was on incoming tide when you see a lot less, on an outgoing tide on a full moon, you wouldn't believe the amount of scum that makes it to the mouth of the creek and right on out into the bay, it's enough to make you sick.

So, let's review; this started out as me trying to loose a little weight and live a little greener, and has snow balled into a total disdain for my city and state governments for letting this atrocity happen. I'm I crazy? Am I the only one this bothers? I certainly hope not.

Just to let you know, if I can get enough people to take the time to comment on this blog, I plan to start an online petition and then see if I can get Friends of the Ballona Wetlands to get behind me and get the local governments to take action.