A new movement is growing to address the increasing amount of pollution in the world’s oceans with regards to trash, mostly in the form of plastic. This disaster is happening all over the world. In the Pacific Ocean it is referred to by the names "Pacific Gyre" or "Great Pacific Garbage Patch". Estimates indicate that approximately 3.5 million metric tons of trash, 80 % of which is plastic, are floating around and degrading into microscopic pieces. This trash kills 100, 000 marine mammals and 500,000 seabirds every year. Since our local, state, and federal governments need help to address trash from its many sources, and since the American public is not being educated well enough to care about this issue, an opportunity exists for the business community to step up and do their fair share to address this problem.

When I first started working at Gaia's Garden Restaurant in Santa Rosa, I couldn't help but notice all the trash that was collecting in the street gutters around our neighborhood which is right next to the Santa Rosa Junior College campus. Since our cities' drainage system feeds into the Russian River which feeds into the Pacific Ocean some 25 miles away, I was alarmed at the thought of all this trash from our area entering the ocean. One day I decided to do an experiment and clean up the trash that was in the gutters within the property lines of our restaurant. I was surprised to find that over a four day period the average time taken to keep our gutters clean was less than six minutes per day. I then had an epiphany and realized that this was something every business could afford to do. I also realized that if every business did this that might go a long way towards helping to prevent the situation in the world’s oceans from getting worse. When I told the owners of the restaurant about my idea, they loved it and encouraged me to proceed with my idea.

The basic premise of the Clean Oceans Campaign is the business community realizes that it is time to assume some responsibility for the damage it is doing to the environment. Pretty much all businesses in the U.S. are causing avoidable and necessary pollution. Since they cannot or will not clean up all of their own pollution, it is only right that they clean up some form of pollution (in this case plastic). What better way to help compensate for the pollution that each business creates than by cleaning up the trash immediately around its own building? Any business that sells anything wrapped or packaged in plastic can safely assume that some of their plastic is floating around in the ocean right now. Ultimately the answer to this problem is more education AND legislation, but in the meantime, the business community must step up to the plate and do its share to combat the massive loss of biodiversity that is happening due to purely anthropogenic sources.

1. DO NOT use an electric or gasoline powered air blower for this. Gas and electric air blowers cause acoustic pollution and air pollution. We want this to be a low tech, low energy movement and we do not want to create a new problem while solving an existing one. Be kind to your neighbor, use a broom!

2. Many cities including Santa Rosa have street sweeping programs. However, there are problems with the street sweepers. In Santa Rosa they only sweep once a month. In our area of downtown it is every third Friday. All of the trash that happens after the third Friday and before the next rain storm will get washed into the drainage system. Also, in Santa Rosa there is no requirement to move your car off the street the night before the sweeper comes, so all of that trash is never collected.

3. It is important to get the leaves and sediment as well as the trash. Yes, leaves and sediment do get washed into the creeks in natural systems, BUT the amount of low friction cement and pavement in your typical city such as Santa Rosa ends up adding a much bigger load of organic matter to the creeks than would normally happen. This matter, mostly leaves and small twigs, is loaded with nitrogen, which stimulates the growth of UN-naturally high levels of things like algae. When this algae dies, the decomposing organisms use up all of the oxygen in the water and fish die. The problem of low friction pavement also ends ups sending much higher levels of sediment into the creeks, which causes big problems with the reproduction cycles of fish such as salmon.

4. There is approximately 150 ft. of curb distance in front of our restaurant. It takes me less than 6 minutes (5 minutes and 34 seconds average) to clean the sidewalks and gutters in front of our restaurant (with a broom and dustpan.) At $8.50 an hour, this works out to around 80 cents a day.

5. If you cannot do this every day, at least make sure you do it the day before a big rainstorm. That is when it is the most important. The same thing goes for before a big WIND storm for obvious reasons. If you are online, go to stormpop.com where you can arrange to be automatically notified (by e-mail) the day before a storm happens.

6. If there is a drainage hole on the property or within 100 feet of the property, you need to sweep every day due to the fact that wind from mother nature and cars and trucks can move small to medium sizes of plastic very far in a single day.

7. If you want to go the extra mile, separate the leaves from the trash and put the leaves into the compost bin. Leaves that end up in the landfill create methane because of the anaerobic decomposition process. Even though many landfills including Sonoma County have methane collectors, only about 50 to 70 percent of the methane produced is kept from going into the atmosphere, depending on whose figures you want to believe.

8. To see firsthand (OK, second hand) exactly what the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is all about please take some of your precious time and google it. In the first few choices you will find several great videos and articles on the subject. If you watch enough videos on this subject you will see some disturbing images that should make everybody realize just how critical an issue this really is. Investigate and be inspired!

9. Help us promote this idea. In order for this campaign to really make a difference this must become a nationwide policy. Please help us spread this idea around like peanut butter on a piece of bread!

10. All those who agree to help with this idea will have the name of their business posted on the website so people will be able to realize just how much your business really cares about this issue.

11. People tend to be copycats. If a high enough percentage of your neighborhood adopts this idea, then we can probably shame those who don't into getting with the program. Let's see if we can morph the "keeping up with the Joneses" idea from a consumption phenomenon to an eco-phenomenon.

12. For safety reasons, make sure you are standing on the sidewalk (not in the street) when sweeping the gutters. Even though overpopulation is a reality, people getting smashed by cars while sweeping their gutters probably is not the best way to deal with that particular problem.