October of 2013 marked the third year of the Surfrider Foundation’s annual Rise Above Plastics Month, during which Surfrider and our friends at Teva aimed to raise awareness of the dangers of plastic pollution and focus on finding solutions. Throughout the month, we shared plastic-related facts as well as tips on how to reduce your individual plastic footprint.
As part of Rise Above Plastics Month, over 40 Surfrider Foundation chapters, members, and volunteers hosted “One Foot at a Time” cleanup events, during which volunteers removed plastic fragments and other trash from our beaches and coastal environments. The debris collected was then repurposed into fun, colorful, and eclectic trash art mosaics!
We had fantastic participation this year – over 200 trash art mosaics were entered into our national contest, indicating over 200 square feet of debris removed from the environment. Congrats to the grand prize winner, John Morris the proud new owner of a TimberTEK Firewire surfboard! However, the trash collection didn’t stop there…
The Surfrider Foundation Huntington Beach / Seal Beach Chapter had over 200 volunteers participate, and removed 271 pounds of trash from the southern California coast! Close behind was the Vancouver Island Chapter, picking up 187 pounds of trash in British Columbia, Canada. Volunteers at the Texas Coast chapter cleaned up 300 plastic bottles from the coast, and the Kauai Chapter members removed 17,600 pounds of fishing nets from the beach. The South Jersey Chapter rallied over 100 volunteers to their beach cleanup that was a big success and got great press. Scroll down for a slideshow of the Cape Fear (NC) Chapter working with the Wilmington Art and Sciences for a presentation and beach cleanup along with a video recap of the Kauai Net Patrol.
The Surfrider Foundation extends a warm thanks to this year’s participating Chapters, individuals, and organizations for their time and efforts that helped make this year’s Rise Above Plastics Month a huge success!