Lightening, thunder, rain squalls, sun and fun beach break met the 40 or so volunteers that showed up for our second beach clean-up of the year. Many of us think of this weather as “normal” in Nova Scotia but that won’t stop me from giving an extra special “THANKS” to all of the people who lugged garbage bags through the rain while watching super fun peaky beach break…on fathers day (who makes these dates, whoops).
At the end of the day we collected about 200kgs of trash, down from 400 in the last clean. It’s funny because you look at the trash and think ‘ah that’s too bad..not as much as last time’ and then realize that that’s a good thing. You don’t get the same gratification from hauling away half the trash but that means we are making a difference; beach-goers see that surfers, locals and others care for this area and in turn respect the place a little more. We also have to thank Debbie, Sarah and Kerry for the lack of trash. These three work at the Provincial Park daily for DNR, they are responsible for a ton of park upkeep including emptying the numerous garbage cans on Lawrencetown, Stoney and Conrad beaches.
Special thanks goes to Jenner Cormier for organizing, Scotty Sherin for the photos, Mike Page and Dartmouth Dodge for the delicious pizza.
If you feel guilty about missing the beach cleanups, don’t worry, there is one planned for Cow Bay in early August and one shortly after Labour day at Lawrencetown. Stay posted through Ocean Minded, surfns.com, or my facebook.
-Nico Manos

Sunday 4/17

Tuesday 4/19

Friday 4/22 – Sunday 4/24

Saturday 4/23

PlanetShoes.com Joins Forces with Carbonfund.org to Reduce Global Warming

Global climate change is a serious issue that affects everyone whether you realize it or not. The clearing of large tracts of forests across the globe, are contributing to rising temperatures, soil erosion, and habitat loss. In addition to losing the oxygen creating, air cleaning benefits that forests provide, the impact of deforestation is multiplied by the CO2 emissions and resources needed to actually clear the forest. Forests are burned in order to clear land, and carbon emissions from machinery used to clear land and transport materials add heavily to the problem. It is estimated that Tropical deforestation releases 1.5 billion tons of carbon into the atmosphere each year.
For the month of April, PlanetShoes.com has partnered with the Carbonfund.org Million Tree Challenge to help reduce our impact on the planet. For only $1 you may plant a tree plus PlanetShoes.com will match the donation with a $1 tree of their own to help reduce the impact of carbon emissions. Because PlanetShoes.com will be matching their customer’s contributions dollar for dollar, the impact is doubled right away. When you consider that over a 50-year lifetime, a tree generates $31,250 worth of oxygen, provides $62,000 worth of air pollution control, recycles $37,500 worth of water, and controls $31,250 worth of soil erosion, $1 seems like a pretty good investment. To do your part in celebrating Earth Month visit http://www.planetshoes.com/earthmonth or learn about all the eco-friendly shoes (link http://www.planetshoes.com/eco) and other earth friendly products at Planet Shoes.

On Saturday March 12th from 9am to 11am, Ocean Minded hosted a beach cleanup in East Coast Park, Singapore. The 32 Volunteers collected and properly disposed of  approximately 55 punds of trash.

Here at Ocean Minded, we work hard to prevent all kinds of trash from harming our world’s waterways. From the materials we use to make our products to our beach cleanup efforts, we strive to leave our chosen playgrounds better than when we found them, and we encourage you to do the same.

This video shows, just how ‘Eventually, Everything ends up in the ocean”.
The Majestic Plastic Bag — A Mockumentary

On Sunday March 21st, Ocean Minded hosted a beach cleanup at Long Beach Cape Town, South Africa. Over 50 energetic children and local volunteers were able to collect and properly dispose of approximately 882 pounds of trash!

Check out the video and see the impact they made in their community!

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Continuing on with Ocean Minded’s 4 Schools in 4 Months cleanups, Ocean Minded and the Capo Valley High School Surf Team took some time out before practice on Wednesday March 3rd to clean up Strands Beach. Denise from the South Orange County Surfrider Chapter joined in the cleanup and helped educate the students on the environmental impact trash has on the ocean. After only 30 minutes the group had amassed approximately 60 pounds of trash. Thank you to Capo Valley High School, Surf Team Coach Shultz, Sambazon and Surfen Donuts for participating in this impactful cleanup.

Ocean Minded has joined forces with 4 local high school surf teams to do various beach clean ups over the next 4 months.

The first beach clean up in this series took place at Salt Creek Beach with Dana Hills High School Surf Team. On Thursday February 18th, the team showed up early for practice and started the day off by cleaning the beach. Ocean Minded and Rick from South Orange County Surfrider educated the students about the damage that trash has at the beach prior to the cleanup. In only 20 minutes, the team was able to collect and properly dispose of approximately 40 pounds of trash. A huge thanks to the students of Dana Hills High School and coach Degen for their help in cleaning up the beach. Also a huge thanks to Surfrider for the recycled trash bags and Sambazon for the Acai drinks!

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