Day 34-36: July 5th

Jing Chen writes:

It was the Fourth of July weekend. We were originally planning to sail down to Santa Cruz and spend the weekends there. Unfortunately the plan fell through and we were here in San Francisco ><

Tim kindly invited us to a party at Treasure Island. We grilled and chatted with many different people. Pin and I went on a floating mattress looking thing and paddled around the water. It was fun :)

We went to the Golden Gate Park the next day and enjoyed the music by the Golden Gate Band. The park was gorgeous and I am definitely going back. I really want to visit de Young Museum as well as the Academy of Science (Third Wednesday of the month is the free day!). Only if the wind was not so strong and the sun was not so shy, it would be even better.

This Monday, Corinna kindly offered us free sailing lessons! She is a friend of Lorraine’s and a very experienced sailing instructor. She even has the captains’ license. The weather was not suitable for us to go out, so we had a crash course on sailing and learnt a 2 day course in 1+ hour. Though that was A LOT of information, it really got me excited about sailing. Later on, we went to a boat docked at the harbor to identify some of the parts we learnt in class. Corinna also shared with us some of her interesting sailing stories. I can’t wait to get into the water now!

Day 33: July 2

Pin Pravalprukskul writes:

This morning, Genea and I took a small trip to the Golden Gate bridge see if we could find the ebb tideline there. The tideline is the where the flood and ebb currents meet, and trash supposedly accumulates along it. We didn't see the tideline, but we did get to enjoy the gorgeous view from the bridge! Truly breath-taking.

"Most Beautiful Steel Bridge"

When we got back, we cleaned out our samples from the Bay Tow on Tuesday to see if we got any plastic. We removed seaweed and other organic matter, and guess what we found?

We didn't get any large pieces of plastic this time, but there were tiny, colorful specks floating on the water. These could be smaller fragments of plastic that broke down in the water through wave action.

Day 31: Wednesday June 30

Genea Foster writes:

Today we held a fundraiser on the Embarcadero by Pier 40. We were trying to sell our signature chocolate covered pretzels, to passing Giant's fanatics. Most of them were focused on getting to the game and did not want to stop for chocolate. However, we got lucky with some children and people who heard us chanting for a long time. Alex and I would shout "Do you like chocolate and care about the environment? Support a local non-profit, Sea Scavenger!" and "Do you like trash in YOUR bay? Us neither, support Sea Scavenger and buy our chocolate covered pretzels!" We got a lot of "Thank you"s for working towards cleaning up the bay, but I think with these hard economic times people are extra-hesitant to donate money. But we did, end up selling all of our pretzels by the end of that day with the help of Lorraine.

Day 30: June 29

Kelli Stephens writes:

I’m back!!! So today I was not able to do much in the way of research or writing my paper…(no worries, I can explain everything.) Once again, Pin and Genea went out with Lorraine in the morning to do a tow of the bay, leaving Jing, Alex, and I with a tasty task…chocolate-covered pretzels! And no, before anyone begins to wonder, we were making them not eating them (such a shame I know). Sea Scavenger is holding another fundraiser tomorrow, this time catering to the patrons of AT&T Park and so the three of us were making the preparations for that. Other than that, nothing else (strictly in the focus of Sea Scavenger’s academic/organizational program, if that makes sense) really happened today. To give you details on the stage of my paper, it is already looking to be a long one. Yet that is not always a good thing. I don’t want my paper to be boring and bland… I want it to have fire! So that was Tuesday in “The Office;” also Pin, Genea, and Lorraine did not get back from their tow til really late (in the context of work hours) so I hope their tow was successful! And because I promised to do better in the way of photos…I have a drawing I made (because I took no photos.) C’est la vie!

Day 28-30: Jun 26-28th

Jing Chen writes:

For the past two weeks, I had been living at Nicole’s place and a temporary life of stability. Nicole, a generous lady who has offered to host each of the interns two weeks in her sweet house this summer, has a super cute dog Ollie. Not only can we get off the boat for a while and enjoy a stable life, but also can we enjoy the company of Ollie. He was so well trained that it was easy for me, who had never owned or lived with a dog, to take care of him. He never gave me any hard time. Well, actually yes. He stole food! He was so clever in finding food, it was difficult to keep things away from him. He has stolen my bagel, ate my Tofu (dogs eat Tofu too, apparently.) and tasted a leftover fish dish place high above the shelf! When we ate popcorns at movie nights, he would quietly lie there and stare at us with his pitiful eyes. His gaze would follow the popcorn from the bowl to our hands then mouth. Occasionally he would stand up to sniff the caramel popcorns (yes, we made caramel and pop the corns ourselves!) but he never made any noises. Ollie is so adorable that I miss him a lot. No wonder Nichole would send a postcard to Ollie when she was away. Ollie is just too cute to be forgotten.

Here is a photo of Ollie.

Isn't he cute? ><

Day 27: June 25

Pin Pravalprukskul writes:

This week we've been taking turns to volunteer at the South Beach Yacht Club Junior Sailing camp, and today was finally my day! It was also the last day of the first camp (there will be two more this summer), so the Junior Sailors raced to show off the super sailing skills they learned over the past week. I helped with food preparation, and afterward was on the 'Mother Ship' most of the time, watching the young sailors manipulate the sails and... wow. I was very, very impressed by how quickly they had learned! They were darting all over the small cove, changing direction with ease. Of course, there were a few capsizes, but that didn't put a dent in their enthusiasm at all - they used their weight to pull their boats upright, and just went right on sailing! Definitely makes me want to learn how to sail now.

Day 26: June 24

Alex Nagourney writes:

This morning, Lorraine and I had a meeting with StopWaste.org, an organization aimed to reduce the waste stream in Alameda County, about our grant application. Sea Scavenger is applying for both their mini grant (for our Bay Tow Study) and the large grant (for our organization and the Gyre trip). We want to connect with Alameda County because the wind carries trash from the San Francisco shoreline to the Alameda shoreline. We are reaching out to Alameda to clean their trash, too, and analyze it in our Bay Tow.

The meeting went very well. We explained what Sea Scavenger has been doing- Tows, Shoreline Cleanup, fundraising, etc.- and the woman we were meeting with sounded very interested, especially in the research aspect of our Bay Tow Study, such as analyzing the plastic, possibly to find a source of pollution.

After the meeting, Lorraine and I met with the Harbor Master at the Jack London Square Pier about the "Trash Slip." It is a special slip that collects a lot of trash because of the wind, currents, tides, etc. He told us he can't rent it to a boater because it is so dirty. Lucky for us, he offered it to us to analyze! We will be coordinating something with him and getting a key soon. That was really exciting!

This is the "Trash slip" in Jack London Square

Day 25: June 23

Genea Foster writes:

Today, we went on a tour of Recology (San Francisco's large waste management company). They really impress me at the way they handle waste. They have a three bin system which collects compost, recyclables, and trash (things that go straight to landfill). They sell compost to local farmers and sell recyclables to countries like China. It really surprised me that there are not many recycling facilities in the US and that there is even a market for plastic. I still can't get my mind to accept the fact that it is less energy intensive to recycle goods by shipping them across the ocean. The trip to the Recology facilities put into perspective how much waste we produce as a community and the figure is disturbing. They process 850 tons of garbage a day and are open 24 hours in order to manage that load, 850 TONS! Also, everything that is put in those black landfill containers GOES STRAIGHT TO THE LANDFILL. If your thought we had fancy technology to separate recyclables out, think again! So please please please use the great three-bin system to its capacity San Franciscans! In New York we have nothing like this and I am disappointed and jealous. Once again, Go California! for being the progressive state you are.

Garbage being sent to the landfill.

"Earth Tear". Art made from recyclables, location: Recology Sculpture Garden.

Day 24: June 22

Kelli Stephens writes:

So today was a pretty quiet day in the office (…ho-hum). Alex was out all morning and afternoon volunteering with the South Beach Yacht Club Junior Sailing kids, and Pin and Genea went out with Lorraine to do their tow of the SF bay, so it was me and Jing in the office for most of the workday. Yet, if you think two economists would be at a loss for how to pass the time…you got another think coming (and yes, I did just use that wildly outdated line…90’s rule!) My work on the research project has lately been progressing more in the way of a literary report than a legitimate analysis, thus, I have been focusing more on locating scientific graphs, tables/figures that could supplement my project. To all my loyal fans, (hey, this is my blog, my fantasy) unfortunately I have no photos to post (partly because I have yet to recharge my camera and partly because I doubt photos of me working at my computer will be that riveting) so I promise to do better next time. Til’ [next] Tuesday. Have a great week!

Days 22-23: June 20-21

Jing Chen writes:

The webpage just crashed and all I have written disappeared :( Here is a summery of my disappeared post.

We went to summer sailstice last Saturday. It was held at Treasure Island and we arrived in the morning to set up the Hobie Cat as well as the booth. It was VERY windy. We spent much time tying everything to the boat stand so that they wouldn't fly away. Because of the weather, the turn out was much smaller than expected. Nonetheless, the people who showed up had given us great support either in the form of donation, buying our chocolate covered pretzels or simply talking to us. I am glad that we could spread some plastic pollution knowledge on the day.

Apart from promoting Sea Scavenger at the booth, we also have interns at trash stations, educating people about trash management. People were very cooperative when we tried to teach them what should be thrown in which bins.

Here is Genea at one of our trash stations :)

By the time we finished, we were freezing in the wind. As you can see from the picture, I borrowed Lorraine's huge and very warm jacket. Thanks Lorraine! There was a lot of food left and the organizing committee gave us a generous amount of chicken. Food for a few weeks!

Day 20: June 18

Pin Pravalprukskul writes:

Tomorrow is a big day - Summer Sailstice! (Get it? Sailstice, solstice...) Sailers worldwide celebrate the longest day of the year by spending the long, delightfully sunny hours on the water, and sailors in the Bay Area are no different. Having lived among sailing enthusiasts for the past three weeks, we've had the importance of this event pretty much hammered into our heads. This year they're holding the fair at Treasure Island for Bay Area sailors, and Sea Scavenger has a booth there! We'll be fund-raising and telling people know about our organization. Today is therefore focused mostly on prep-work for the fair. We're making chocolate-covered pretzels and sorting trash from one of our beach clean-ups for the booth display.

Jing and Alex making chocolate-covered pretzels

Day 19: June 17

Genea Foster writes:

Today at work I finally got through all of the research papers laying on my desktop only to download 5 more. There is not as much research done on entanglement than on ingestion of plastics. It is also difficult to analyze where the animals got entangled, similar to the problem of trying to source plastic pollution. But I am gearing up to start proposing which animals are most at risk and where we should focus our extraction efforts. I'm anxious to tow so we could see what are the most prevelant types of plastics found in the bay.

Outside of work, all of the interns (except for Pin because she had an Ultimate Frisbee Game) and Lorraine went to see the talk between Raj Patel, author of The Value of Nothing and Stuffed and Starved, and Annie Leonard called The Value of Stuff. They confirmed my belief that it is not only our individual actions that need to change but also the structure of the system. We all need to get in touch with our inner radical activist and start a change!

Check their videos out:

The Story of Stuff:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLBE5QAYXp8

The Story of Bottles Water:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Se12y9hSOM0

The Story of Cap & Trade:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pA6FSy6EKrM

And Raj Patel's YouTube video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6P03nNeYiJo

Day 18: June 16

Alex Nagourney writes:

This morning, Lorraine and I went to the Earth Island Institute in Berkeley. They are located in the David Brower Center, which is an energy efficient building. It is absolutely amazing! They even use rainwater in the toilets to be more sustainable! Lorraine and I had a meeting about our fiscal sponsorship application and how to improve it in order to help with the grant-writing that I will be doing later this summer. It was a very informative meeting, as we discussed our Advisory Committee, budget, and goal.

After the meeting, Lorraine and I went to Chinatown to buy Egg Tarts and Steamed Buns because today is Jing's Birthday!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JING!!

Egg tarts are Jing's favorite dessert and we wanted to do something special for her. She really appreciated it! All the interns sang to her and enjoyed the treats together. Later that night, Jing and Lorraine went to a lecture at The Long Now on Clear Fusion Energy. She said it was really cool and Ed Moses explained that they are very close! For more information go here: http://www.longnow.org/seminars/02010/jun/16/clean-fusion-power-decade/

Day 17: June 15

Kelli Stephens writes:

So today was not one of the high points of my day. I have seemed to reach a “writer’s block” of sorts to the progression of my economic report. I would have never thought sourcing out plastic pollution could be so difficult. Getting started was not necessarily the hard part because there is a lot of information out there about plastic pollution, but the difficulty is narrowing down who are the main contributors to ocean plastic pollution both on the consumer side and the producer side. Fortunately, during our weekly progress meeting today with Lorraine and Monica, many things about the overall goal for Sea Scavenger were cleared up for me and a few of the other interns and it has helped me immensely. Before, I was under the impression that Sea Scavenger is to be like another research org conducting studies, but what we are actually trying to be are like garbage-men for the sea. This distinction was of great use to me. So now with a clearer understanding of my role, I am feeling re-inspired and ready to progress to the next stage of my report.

Days 14-16: June 12-14

Truth of Plastic Recycling

As part of the internship, I am researching on the economics of recycled market. Today, I came across this website by Ecology Center, which unveils the seven misconceptions about plastics and plastics recycling. It states that

“A chasing arrows symbol means a plastic container is recyclable. The arrows are meaningless. Every plastic container is marked with the chasing arrows symbol. The only information in the symbol is the number inside the arrows, which indicates the general class of resin used to make the container. The attorneys general of 11 states objected to false and misleading claims about plastic recyclability. The recent settlement that they reached with the American Plastics Council paves the way for a first-ever definition of what claims can or cannot be made about plastic recycling and recyclability.”

I thought a chasing arrow means it is recyclable, so I googled it. According to a paper by Resource Recycling, North America’s Recycling and Composting Journal, Gary Anderson created this symbol in 1970. However, today the use of this symbol is not regulated. This is a public domain, just like the no-smoking sign.

The recycling of plastics is a complicated matter as well. Even the meaning of the word “recycling” is confusing. At present, recycled and recovered plastic are made into other plastic products that are not currently being recycled, such as carpets. This means, we are only temporarily diverting plastics away from the landfill, but they eventually end up there. Therefore plastic is not truly recyclable. Secondly, the society of Plastics Industry developed the resin identification code, which categorizes plastics into 7 categories. This is the number we often see surrounded by the chasing arrow printed on plastic products. Only a few types of plastics, mainly PET and HDPE, are currently being so-called recycled. Other types can be recycled too, but are not currently being recycled due to economic reasons. Less than 10 percent of plastic is actually being recycled in the US and less than 7 percent in the UK. We have to reduce the consumption of plastics to truly eradicate the problem of plastic pollution in the ocean.

To begin your part in reducing plastic pollution, earth911.org provides us some tips to reuse plastic. Check it out! http://earth911.com/news/2010/06/07/fresh-tips-for-reusing-plastic/

Day 13: June 11

Pin Pravalprukskul writes:

Over the past week I've been doing lots of research on ocean plastics, focusing on sampling methods that have been used in the past. I'm hoping to apply what I learn to our tow nets - and I can see some aspects of the towing that could be improved already. A lot of the papers are by Charles Moore, founder of the Algalita Marine Research Foundation. He is one of the pioneering researchers on ocean plastics, having been one of the first to sail through the Trash Vortex in the North Pacific Gyre. He was shocked by the amount of plastic debris that was floating in the gyre, and so was spurred to change his research focus towards marine debris collected in gyres. More about Charles Moore and Algalita can be found here: http://www.algalita.org.

In the evening, our team of interns introduced our projects at the South Beach Yacht Club monthly members meeting. It was encouraging to see people so receptive to our work. Next month, we're going to present to the members the results of our research.

Day 12: June 10

Alex Nagourney writes:

Today was a great day! Lorraine, Pin, Genea, and I went for an observation of the San Francisco Bay with John V, a very nice man Lorraine, Founder of Sea Scavenger, met a few weeks ago. He has a very nice powerboat which we took through the Central Bay and South Bay, then through the South Channel. We found a lot of plastic where there is low energy and little waves. For example, we found a lot of plastic that had collected on pipes in the water near industrial buildings. We found a basketball and water jug here! This observation, from 10am to 1pm, gave us a lot of good ideas of where to tow.

When we got back to the office, I worked on the website design a little more and made an online store at Zazzle. You can check it out at: http://www.zazzle.com/seascavenger/gifts?cg=196089477959665185

Beetlejuice was playing in Dolores Park at 8:30pm, so Kelli, Jing, Genea, and I went to watch it with blankets, sleeping bags, and a lot of extra layers of clothes! We couldn’t see too much of the movie because we were so far away, but it was nice to go to Mission and see more of San Francisco! Pin didn’t come with us because she has Ultimate Frisbee practice, which she said was a ton of fun!

Pin, Genea, and I on the powerboat for the observation tow:

Genea and I at Dolores Park for Beetlejuice:

Jing and Kelli at Dolores Park for Beetlejuice:

Day 11: June 9

Genea Foster writes:

Our observation tour of the bay is tomorrow and I cannot wait! I am very anxious to get on the water and see what is happening in the bay with my own eyes. But today, I outlined my entire summer project. Some of the questions in the outline are “What is the most prevalent type of plastic found in the bay?” and “What animals are most at risk?” To find out the answers you’ll have to stay tuned until the end of the summer and keep checking back on our website! On another note the weather is going to be beautiful this weekend and I’m excited to do some more exploring of downtown San Francisco!

Day 10: June 8

Kelli Stephens writes:

Nothing too mind-blowing happened today. Everyone has pretty much gotten a sense of what we are doing for our project after meeting one-on-one with Lorraine; so it was a pretty quiet day at the office with everyone working on their computers, researching sources, and whatnot. My individual contribution to the economics team is to research the domestic land-based sources of marine plastic pollution and research who are the top producers and top consumers of this plastic. This task seems easy enough, yet the only hitch is that we are trying to find data specific for the San Francisco Bay Area and that is where I have hit a roadblock in my search for data. (It seems that almost every study about plastic waste/pollution was only ever done on a national or state-by-state scale) but never fear, I am still working hard in finding my way around it. So that was pretty much what my entire Tuesday looked like. After work, Monica stopped by and we sat and chatted with her about our residential and dining circumstances and how we’re generally getting along with boat life.

Days 7-9: June 5-7

Jing Chen writes:

World Ocean Day Beach Cleanup

Last Saturday, we went to Crissy Field for a beach clean-up event organized by Sea Stewards. Lots of plastics pieces were found on the beach. Unfortunately, much of the plastic has been broken down into tiny pieces that are too small to be picked up. It has become part of the sand, which is bad. =(

We still managed to pick up some cigarette buds, metallic key chains, ice cream wrappers, bottle caps, eye drops, pens, a light bulb and plastic objects that we could not figure out what they were.

Sea Steward had an event after the cleanup to share with us conservation of sharks. They showed a very creative short film about plastic pollutions. The film, Plastric Bag by Raman Bahranii, narrates the serious life of a plastic bag with a first-person voice, expressing the loneliness of the plastic bag away from his master, drifting with the wind and water, unwanted and abandoned, longing for death to free himself from this world. It was very impactful and you all should watch you if you have a chance!

This is me cleaning up at Crissy Field:

This is Senator Leland Lee who came to share his insight on protecting the ocean with us:

This is totally random but we saw the most adorable Chow Chow outside Sports Basement:

Day 6: June 4

Pin Pravalprukskul writes:

This morning we met the team of Around the Americas, who are sailing around North and South America to raise awareness of issues affecting the oceans like ocean acidification, the melting of polar ice caps, and pollution, as well as to educate people about the exciting new marine research that's being done. They had just passed their first-year anniversary of the expedition, having left Seattle on May 31st last year. Zeta, their Shipboard Educator, gave us a tour of the boat (Ocean Watch), which is a cozy home and a research lab all in one. She also told us about the experiences they've shared on their expedition and described the kinds of data they've been collecting, including water quality data and jellyfish samples. They had journeyed through the Northwest Passage in the Arctic Ocean, which is considered a highly dangerous route because of the sea ice - but because of global warming the chances of navigating the Passage are now much higher. The crew have been docked in San Francisco for a couple of days to welcome anyone - schoolchildren, researchers, passersby - onto their ship to learn about their expedition. I'm definitely inspired to learn more about the oceans after hearing about the crew's mission and stories.

This is our intern group and Lorraine with Zeta and the Around the America boat:

In the evening, we boarded boats again - but this time for another purpose. The bi-weekly South Bay Yacht Club (SBYC) Friday Night Race was on tonight, and a couple of us had the chance to be on some of the race sailboats. Alex and I joined a crew that consisted of a family and some of their friends. We had left the harbor and were just getting ready to start the race when we saw three boats colliding right in front of us! There was some frenzied walkie-talkie communication and eventually we were told that the race was canceled for the night. We later found out that the Race Committee boat, Annabel, had sustained some damage from the collision. Jing had been helping out on the Committee boat, and she told us that the collision hadn't been too bad. Phew!

So instead of racing, the crew took us on a scenic tour of the Bay. We sailed towards the Golden Gate Bridge, passing several landmarks like Treasure Island, Angel Island, Alcatraz and Fisherman's Wharf (so many sea lions!). It was exciting to see them up-close in the sunset. We sailed right into the heavy fog until we couldn't see our surroundings and had to use radar to track our location. Several times we heard boat horns, but it was only a few minutes later that we could actually see the boats (thank goodness for radar!). I really enjoyed the rocking of the boat with the waves, though it did get pretty violent at times. I had never been on a sailboat before and it took while to figure out the boat terminology they were using, like 'jib' (the front sail) and 'tack' (turning the boat in the opposite direction). I'm already looking forward to the next race!