My green friend Lauren Muller, an environmental educator, had an awesome time participating in Coastal Clean-up Day this year with her husband and two young children. She is my guest blogger and would love to tell you more about her experience.

Rolling up to Coastal Clean-Up Day on Saturday, September 15th, with an 8-month old and a 2-year-old is no joke! Let’s be honest, when you have kids that young, I think you should get a prize when everyone leaves the house with both shoes on their feet. But, I was bound and determined to 1) be a part of something bigger that helps care for our ocean and environment and 2) expose my children while they’re young to this amazing clean-up effort. I think it is so important to create an environmental awareness in children when they’re little. I feel like when I teach my little guys that we are a part of something bigger and that they have power to make a change starting now, it has a positive impact on their future. They develop a deep concern for the environment and when they are older, they can continue to treat our environment with care. The goal is to instill all of these amazing eco-habits in my kids now, so when they grow up, their way of life is inherently environmentally positive. The Tbilisi Declaration is a great tool to guide parents and teachers along the environmental awareness path. Anyway, I digress.

We chose to help clean up Torrance Beach in South Bay, California and I registered us online through Heal the Bay earlier that week. We were supposed to meet at Miramar Park at 9am and arrived late, as usual with the Muller family. When we got there, at about 9:30, the place was PACKED! I mean there were easily over 100 people just at the park, not to mention the people that had already started the clean-up at the beach. We signed our waivers, including my 8-month-old and 2-year-old, and waited in line to listen to our safety talk. Zack, my two-year-old, loved getting his wristband and listened intently when they talked about dog poop floating into the ocean from the stormdrains! We headed down to the beach, grabbed our bags and gloves and started searching. We chose to go close to the shore line and look for small pieces of plastic, or microplastics, as those are the ones often bypassed and can cause lots of harm. The myriad of people ahead of us must have done a great job because on our quarter-mile walk we found a total of 3 pieces of trash! However, don’t think that the beach is this clean. Heal the Bay counted a total of 40,000 pounds of trash on this epic Coastal Clean-up Day. They had over 75 sites and almost 14,000 people participated. This is just in Los Angeles County! Here are some amazing pictures from Heal the Bay. The California Coastal Commissionc ounted over 53,000 volunteers and over 734,000 pounds of trash and recyclables. We had a wonderful time and I am so glad I had the opportunity to share the importance of cleaning the ocean and going litter-LESS with my family.

Did you participate in our eco-habit of going litter-LESS this month? We would love to see pics! It’s never too late to pick up three pieces of trash! Share your eco-habit of going litter-less by tagging us @kim_ecohabits