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TOM WHEELER:

Welcome to the Econews Report. I'm your host this week, Tom Wheeler, Executive Director of EPIC, the Environmental Protection Information Center. And joining me is my friend Caroline Griffith, Executive Director of the North Coast Environmental Center. Hey, Caroline. And we are also joined by Sable Odry of the North Coast Environmental Center. Hey, Sable.

All right. So we are going to be talking about a lot of things going on at the NEC, but I think that a common theme is cleanups. So we have Coastal Cleanup Day, we have encampment cleanup issues, and we also have trash art and the role of art in environmentalism. Let's talk about Coastal Cleanup Day first. This is one of the proud traditions of the North Coast Environmental Center. You all are the inventors of Coastal Cleanup Day, which is really cool. This is now an international event. Caroline, would you like to talk about the long and rich and proud history of the North Coast Environmental Center and Coastal Cleanup Day?

CAROLINE GRIFFITH:

Sure. And I will say, and Sable can get into this later, that it has now been extended to an entire month. So we don't just focus on a single day anymore. But it started with a few NEC volunteers who got a grant to do beach cleanups and started working on this. And we all, as people who are millennials-ish, right, like most of us, can remember a time when there wasn't as much plastic trash as there is now. But when this was first started in the 80s, it was when they really began to see more and more plastic trash washing up on the oceans, on beaches. And so it became a thing that, from my understanding of being told by folks who've been around since then, that it started as a reaction to this, but also really grew because it was a fun thing to do with a group of people. And I think that this, as we look at whatever environmental issue it is, whether it's water, climate change, various pollutions, plastic pollution, all these things, it can be really intense to look at this very big picture. And so it's very satisfying to just go out with a group of friends and pick up trash on the beach. And at the end of it, you can look and say, look at this thing that we did and we did together. And then it got the attention of the California Coastal Commission, which is now who administers this whole thing throughout the states. I agree to be one of the largest single volunteer days on the planet as folks go out and pick up trash, which on the one hand is really cool that all these people go out and do this thing, but then also like, what a bummer that this is the thing that everybody has to do, right? So we're kind of like trying to put ourselves theoretically out of business when it comes to cleanups through some of the data collection that we do while these cleanups happen, so that we can work to figure out where it's coming from and stop it at the source.

WHEELER:

Well, I I love one of your earlier points about this was a fun thing that people could go out and do I know that the north coast environmental center has also worked on eco-grief before and ways to deal with this like feeling of helplessness where we are confronting these large systemic global issues And we are just like these small insignificant little specs, right? Like we're just individuals within these larger systems and It it sounds silly that just like going out and picking up trash can help with that But it really can help because you you are able to transform something You can see the impact that you're making you might be like a small insignificant spec But like you are accomplishing something you are you're fighting it even in your own small way There's there's some way in which like doing the work Is Is a cure in part to this like ecological grief that I think a lot of people particularly within our generation our feeling or this like existential dread about the world so This is just like a perhaps a little push that if you ever have those feelings go out and pick up trash It it's real easy and you're going to feel better at the end about your accomplishment and it's good for our planet, too.

Also in the show notes for this episode We'll put links to our old shows with jen savage of the Surfrider Foundation. Jen is the senior plastics pollutions program manager for Surfrider -- one hell of a title -- and Surfrider has been working on plastics pollution in our ocean, especially microplastics, and you can learn all about the ways that microplastics are like Infiltrating all parts of our ecosystems and our own bodies including being found in our blood and passing the blood brain barrier, so Maybe you'll maybe if you didn't have existential dread before you'll certainly get it after listening to that episode Sable tell us about this year's coastal cleanup day. What what y'all doing?

SABLE ODRY:

Well, combating existential dread, hopefully. We yeah, since the pandemic, we've expanded Coastal Cleanup Day into a month long activity, which, like, in part was due to safety concerns of let's find ways that people can gather in smaller groups, take the precautions they need to stay safe. But also we found that it really helped to instill a concept of like making trash pickup a habit rather than just a once a day or one day a year kind of thing. And it allows like more people to participate in different areas that work better with their schedules. So this year, we've got cleanups happening every weekend for public cleanups. And then we've also got school groups that are doing their own activities during the week. So last weekend, we went down to Crab Park, which I've never been there. It was a beautiful beach. We were there with the Friends of the Eel. And then there's also a Coastal Land Trust hosted a cleanup and a habitat restoration cleanup up on Moonstone Beach and Little River. And then this coming Saturday, we're doing a kayak cleanup around Tulawat Island, which I'm stoked about. I don't get many excuses to take my kayak out and actually like feel like I'm doing something like beneficial for the environment as well, other than like my own engagement with it. So I've got a tandem and I'm excited to take a friend out there and pick up some trash from the waters. It's been exciting to be able to coordinate with with site captains that like have done these things in the past and have these different connections where they've worked with the Wiyot tribe to do these cleanups for several years now. And and also with with other organizations that are stepping up to to support volunteer efforts by like donating trash disposal services and providing repurposed plastic bags like what we get from the California Native Plant Society just got donated a bunch of buckets as well, which is really helpful for trash pick up. And so if we've it's part of our our program for these cleanups as we also try to provide. Repurposed and reusable. Materials for cleanups from our zero waste lending library. So for all these cleanups happening every weekend.

WHEELER:

Where can folks find a schedule if they are so inclined to join a cleanup?

ODRY:

up on our website.

WHEELER:

or NEC.org.

ODRY:

yournec.org slash coastalcleanup dot month

WHEELER:

Awesome. And roughly, and there's probably too many to to fully keep track of, but how many would you guess how many cleanups are going to be part of this month?

ODRY:

We've got somewhere around 20 cleanups I think so far and I'm still getting emails from from other participants that are like oh we we missed the the notification, sign us up so.

WHEELER:

So this is a great opportunity. You know, maybe you have a small business and you have some employees and you want to like do something for the community. That's also a bonding exercise for your company, whatever your school group. If, if I am interested in hosting my own cleanup, what should I do? How should I go about doing this?

ODRY:

You can email me at coastalprograms at uronec.org, also found on our website, and we set you up with all the information about how best to locate where you want to do a cleanup, the forms that you need as far as like a liability waiver, as well as data sheets that help to prevent plastic from getting into the environment in the first place. And we also have the Zero Waste Lending Library, so we've got trash pickers, buckets, repurposed bags, hazardous waste containers, magnet sticks, gloves, a whole assortment of things. Yeah, so if you get in contact with me, we always love having more cleanup opportunities and getting more of the community involved.

WHEELER:

So in doing data collection on coastal cleanups, you know, you're going out, you're picking up trash. What are the kind of most common forms of trash that you're finding on our beaches? What are our particularly persistent problems?

ODRY:

We definitely see like an array of things that vary from urban environments to beaches. So on beaches, we find a lot more like marine equipment, ropes and netting and things like that as well as like plastic bottles, a lot of nails from bonfires and things like that. But we actually focus a little bit more on urban environments and try to keep it from getting to the beach in the first place. And that we're finding a lot more like cigarette butts, tiny alcohol like plastic alcohol bottles. That's really common. Everyone's definitely noticed a pattern of like certain neighborhoods have certain brands that they tend to favor of alcohol.

WHEELER:

Yeah, my neighborhood is 99 bananas.

GRIFFITH:

bananas neighborhood to the neighborhood around our office is, oh gosh, I can't remember the exact brand, but it's one of those it's fireball. Oh, fireball.

WHEELER:

Yeah.

ODRY:

Yeah. Candy wrappers also. It's another fun one to kind of like figure out what's everyone's flavor.

WHEELER:

So I know that the NEC has done some cool stuff with with trash, trying to make art out of it in this art is not just for the sake of art, but it's also kind of educational about like the trash that we're finding and the prevalence of things like cigarette butts. Caroline, can you talk a little bit more about this like trash to art work that the NEC has done? Yeah.

GRIFFITH:

Absolutely. And I guess it kind of happens. So as we're as we're doing cleanups, we're doing the data collection, we use an app to kind of keep track of all of that stuff. So we have it there so that information can be used. It's been used by Surfrider has gathered data from folks all around the states to work on getting certain areas declared impacted under the Clean Water Act for microplastics. The city of Arcata has used some of our data to help justify their single use plastics ban. So we're doing all that data collection. We're also keeping an eye out for interesting and beautiful things, which can be I mean, it's in the eye of the beholder, right? What is interesting and beautiful to separate that out to use for art. And really just thinking about that idea of how, you know, we all need to we all get information differently. And we're all impacted differently by different things, right? So like, sometimes you can see you can see the numbers of how many cigarette butts are found on the ground. But when you come to our office, and you see the art made by Maureen McGarry out of cigarette butts, that is birds and fish, all out of those cigarette butts, and you see them all together, it lands differently, right? You can see that, like, oh, this is what is being impacted by this. And also sometimes just the sheer numbers of the things all together. If you just see 199 bananas bottle, you're like, oh, okay, there's 199 bananas bottle. But if you're able to gather 50 of those bottles and put them together into a piece of art, it really drives home just what an issue all of this is. So we have been for the last few years, we just celebrated our third Craft for the Coast trash art show and competition. So we invite different upcycled artists, some people use things that they take out of their own trash or divert from their own recycling bins to make art. This year, we had a show at Our Space, which is an art space that has been curated by the Arcata Playhouse that works with a lot of artists who live on the streets, and had our show there. And we had a lot more art this year that was straight up just stuff that came off of the streets that were constructed into just amazing visual art. One artist, everything he used, he had found in the Arcata forest. So it's everything from tent poles to there were Barbies involved, just like just amazing little bits of trash that come together into these, these murals or mobiles to really show, I guess, just the beauty of things, but also to make us really think about all the stuff that is created in our world and then just

WHEELER:

I like that. I like that it forces a moment of reckoning with our consumer culture, our toss-away culture. There's one that I always enjoy seeing when I go into the NEC. I think it's an egret, maybe it's a heron made out of cigarettes. And just the number of cigarette butts that were required to form this big bird sculpture is incredible. And it's just a reminder of how ubiquitous and how common cigarette butts are in the environment. And cigarette butts, if folks don't know, are plastic pollution. This is not a biodegradable cotton something or another. This is the stuff that will break down and be those microplastics that are found in fish, in marine life, and in us humans that will come into our bodies and impact us. So very cool. If you ever go into the NEC, there's a mini gallery of some of this plastic trash art. Check it out. It's neat stuff.

GRIFFITH:

It is growing. It is a growing gallery because we've been hosting monthly trash craft nights. That's something that Sable has kind of taken on since they've started at the NEC, opening up the space so we can have thoughtful conversations about trash and also just make stuff together. Again, trying to have a good time while we think about giant systemic issues.

WHEELER:

For the Econews Report, we're talking about all things NEC, from trash pickups to the all-species parade to homeless encampments. Sable, maybe you could talk a little bit more about this trash art night and let us know when they occur and how we can participate.

ODRY:

Yes, we open up our office space and provide some equipment for making trash and also trash. So we like, yeah, when we do our cleanups, we're always keeping an eye out for things that might be able to be repurposed and utilized in other ways rather than going into a landfill. So we usually host it around the last Tuesday of the month. We're skipping it this month because we're so busy with picking up the trash, but we're planning on having an extra big one at the end of October, probably October 22nd, I believe. And yeah, the office will be open. It's from 6 to 8 p.m. There'll be glue guns and table space and camaraderie. And we've done some pretty exciting things with it since I've been at the NEC, at least. We got to, in the spring, join with a Kinect Sculpture Race team, the Trashlantians, and help them decorate their kinetic sculpture, Trashlantis, utilizing trash that we'd picked up from our cleanups to help them and their message of these part human, part fish, strange beings that are developing in the ocean due to all of our plastic pollution. So it's, yeah, some fun projects can be born out of having these moments of being creative and introspective about our current situation.

WHEELER:

Very cool.

GRIFFITH:

A side effect of it, though, is that I know I've kind of started hoarding trash that like I find I find pretty things on the ground. And I'm like, Oh, I'm going to take that. I'm going to make something out of it later.

ODRY:

True, I definitely have a spot right by my back door that's little trash bits that I find. And also things that I, yeah, instead of throwing away my own trash that I've utilized, or even things that may not be recyclable that used to be considered recyclable, I've definitely taken to setting aside so that we have things to work with and do something else with.

WHEELER:

Very, very cool. All right. I look forward to seeing everyone in the listening audience at a future trash art night at the NEC. And so this is a nice transition to our next topic, which involves both art as a way of spreading environmental awareness and another longstanding NEC tradition. And that is the All Species Parade at the North Country Fair. Caroline, can you talk to us about the All Species Parade? If someone's never seen it, what what's what's it all about?

GRIFFITH:

Well, I mean, it involves all species parading together. So that's there's a lot of beautiful costumes made by people. There are plants, there are animals. I think some people still come as humans because that is, in fact, a species that would fit into all the species. And it is a joyous celebration of all those species with drums and music. It is a very, very it feels like a very arcada sort of affair. It's a very humble affair. Right. With all of the beautiful costumes, we have such amazing performers and puppet makers and all of these things. So they all come together to create a fun, family friendly situation in which the North Country Fair is just surrounded by all of these species and their revelry.

WHEELER:

And this year you have a very special theme for the All Species Parade, and you got to preview this at this year's Salmon Fest. Can you talk about the theme and why this year? Well.

GRIFFITH:

So I guess I first want to say that the All Species Parade used to be a project of the NEC up until very recently. And then we kind of stepped back and it has been taken up by the Arcada Playhouse, which are great friends and collaborators of ours. And we were invited this year to join them kind of in reprising a bit of artistry that actually came out of a previous director of the NEC, Dan Erisman, and James Hildebrand, who is a puppeteer who works with the Arcada Playhouse, envisioned this symbolic demolition of the Klamath Dams, in which the dams are exploded and all of the fish who have been clamoring to get through these dams are finally able to get through. And this year, in honor of the fact that the dams have started coming down, this was reprised. And we got to tag along with the Playhouse as they did this at the Klamath Salmon Festival in collaboration with the Yurok Tribal Court. So I'm going to describe it to you all, and it's not going to make any sense, so you just have to go to the All Species Parade. But just imagine a gigantic dam with all of the species behind it, the lamprey, the sturgeon, the salmon trying to get through. And then one lucky construction worker gets to come and explode the dam, and everybody comes pouring through. So this will happen again on Saturday the 16th at the All Species Parade. And I have to say, as someone, and just, it was an honor to be invited to participate in this, and my co-workers and I, after the fact, were talking about how unexpectedly emotional it was to be holding our little salmon puppet, and as the dam came down, to actually get to go through it, and to feel that excitement as we're embodying these animals. And just that is the power of art right there, right? To make you feel something differently.

WHEELER:

That's so cool. And I'm so excited about the climate dam removals. I actually just got to get a chunk of Copco to the first of the dams to come out. So I have a little piece of concrete from Copco, too. And it's like one of my most cherished possessions now. So thank you, Amber, for that wonderful present. Let's finish in talking about another really cool thing that the NEC is taking leadership on, and that is trying to better our community conversation about encampments, homeless encampments in Humboldt County, what to do about them, their impact on the environment and how we can approach this issue with with sensitivity for those who are experiencing homelessness, as well as trying to still better our environment. So, Caroline, hats off to you. This is a deeply complicated and thorny issue. And I really, really respect the NEC for tackling it. Can you talk to us about your work on this? Yeah.

GRIFFITH:

Thanks, Tom. And so I can say it kind of, it started, we've been doing cleanups for years, so we kind of have this association with doing trash cleanups. And maybe about a year ago in Eureka, there was a particularly large encampment that was evicted, folks were kicked out, and there was a lot of rhetoric around it about just the environmental degradation of the area that people were living in, particularly around the issues of trash. And as NEC staff, we have, we have friends who work with the unhoused community, we have friends who are unhoused, we've been able to build these relationships with folks and understand that this is not by choice, and that none of these folks would like to live with their trash in the encampments, it's a matter of a lack of services. And so we first got really angry about the situation, and then we're like, well, how is it? Is there anything that we can actually do to work with this? And right around that time, some of our friends who do work with folks who are unhoused said, hey, some of the people that I've been talking to in encampments would love to have someone come and talk to them so they can figure out what to do with all the trash. They're also just interested in the areas that they're living. They want to talk to somebody about what the birds are there, what the plants are there. And so we got these introductions to a couple of different encampments, and since then have been doing regular cleanups with them, basically just facilitating them getting trash out of the areas where they are, which has been a really, really amazing opportunity for building community, honestly, to rally around this thing. We all live in this world where everything is wrapped in plastic, right? And especially if you don't have cooking facilities, everything that you consume is wrapped in plastic. So what are we going to do with all of that? And so since last September, we have been able to remove, I think we're about 10,000 pounds of trash from some of these encampments. That's not including some of the latest ones where we've actually been able to pair with some businesses in the areas around there who have sponsored dumpster service for some of those encampments. So it's been cool to see how it's not just, you know, we don't live in microcosms. Nothing that we do is in a vacuum, right? And so that we've, in doing this, have helped to not only build connections ourselves with the folks who are living there, but kind of have that trickle out a bit and see those larger connections happen in the community too. So our goals are to help figure out with the folks who are in those encampments what sustainable solutions are to this issue.

WHEELER:

And what have those solutions been? I feel like from my own experience in Eureka, the city will briefly attempt something and then kind of throw up their hands when it doesn't immediately work. So finding kind of long-term lasting solutions seems important and having a degree of stick-to-itiveness and not just giving up also seems important from my own experience. But what have you learned as a solution for helping to improve these campsites?

GRIFFITH:

Well, I think that we do, this is, this is a long game. I think really that, you know, this is the, there are a lot of things that have gotten us to this point where we do have so many folks who have been pushed to the margins and often the margins literally in our communities are the green spaces. So that's spots where there is this, unfortunately, competition between the other species that are living there and, and the humans who come in. So this is, there's not going to be an easy solution to this, but. Through this work, I was really driven home that like, if the solutions are going to work, they need to involve the folks who are experiencing the situation in the first place. So I think that oftentimes what happens in our decision-making bodies is they say, here's what we think needs to happen for all these folks. And then because it hasn't involved the input of the people who would actually be utilizing those services. And they don't get enough time for it to work. Then they say, Oh, it didn't work. We tried, but it didn't work. But one easy solution is to provide trash service for known encampments and to have more accessible public bathrooms for folks who need them and to have those open more often, you know, in Eureka, we have a situation where bathrooms close at 4 PM. That's not helpful.

WHEELER:

Yeah. That doesn't work with human biology. Totally. I, I also appreciate your comment about listening to the communities that are actually impacted here, and I think that this reflects some of the problem with kind of the parochial governments, right, where these people who aren't experiencing homelessness think that they know best, right? Well, we'll come in and try to impose solutions on communities and not really realize the lived experience and won't understand the realities of actually being unhoused. And so these solutions don't work. And so then it leads to a frustration about failed solutions. And then there's just inevitable blaming of the problem on the people who are at the margins of society, who are the most vulnerable. So I really so that that really resonated with me. And I again, I think that the NEC is is doing really great work here. And this is some of the stuff that is hard for environmental groups to do, because there's a lot of like weird cross-cultural stigma against the the houseless, where this is an issue that like both like birders and liberal Democrat birders and Republicans will both team up to villainize the houseless. And so you've you've picked a fight that puts you in the crosshairs of of both communities. So kudos to the leadership of the NEC. And this is why I I'm also just so proud of being a Humboldter in the environmental movement. I think that we are really redefining what environmentalism means up here. And this is not an anti-human environmentalism that has been so prevalent in the history of of our movement, but one that that is pro-human. Humans aren't pollution. So I'm proud to to to be on the same team as you. Thanks, Tom. OK, well, unfortunately, I think that we are just out of time. But again, if you want to find out more information about trash pickups, trash art nights and all things NEC, go to your NEC dot o r g and give our friends Caroline and Sable some love and support while you're there as well. So Sable, Caroline, thank you so much for joining the Econews Report.

ODRY:

Thank you. Thanks, Tom. Bye.

WHEELER:

All right, and join us again next week on this time and channel for more environmental news from the north coast of california