Riding the Plastic Wave
- Kathleen is getting barreled by her plastic wave!
CODE Keeper, Kathleen Egan aims to end the ride of the giant “Plastic Wave.” Egan, a surfer of seven years, noticed that the amount of plastic pollution in the water and on the beaches has continued to rise over the years.
Thanks to 14,000 Volunteers, Our Coasts are Cleaner
Coastal Code, Alaskan Brewing Company’s non-profit initiative, endorsed International Coastal Cleanup Day in September in Oregon, San Diego, Yakutat, and Juneau by cleaning up more than 200,000 lbs of debris from more than 520 miles of coastline with the help of more than 14,000 people.
Surf Competition Promotes Active Aging
This Halloween the Huntington Beach City Council on Aging (HBCOA) hosted the 2009 Southland Senior Olympics Surf Competition. This surf competition was for men and women over the age of 50 representing their city who surf longboard or shortboard from all over southern California on the south side of Huntington Beach pier.
Code Keepers Far and Wide
Hey all, thanks for a great week in Yakutat and Juneau. I dig your state, had a phenomenal time and am disheartened to see the amount of garbage on your beaches, but inspired to keep working hard for clean beaches and oceans. Jared
Coastal CODE Day 1
AK Brewery CODE Keepers – Day 1, Arrival in Yakutat
Kathleen Egan, San Francisco, CA
We arrived in Yakutat today for a week of Alaskan-style adventure, environmental activism, and surf. So far, the trip is exceeding expectations on all fronts. The flight was delayed due to an unscheduled landing in Sitka due to fog. After we left Sitka, we had an inspiring flight to Juneau and then Yakutat flying over glaciers and snow blanketed spines. I was a little sad to be without my skis but. . . this is a surf trip. I prayed that my board and bag made the hopscotch of flights successfully.
Everyone made it successfully here and we hustled down to the beach to do our first beach clean-up. I have done beach clean-ups all over the pacific and, at first glance, this beach was amazing clean. Mount St. Elias stood in the background of a beautiful sound spotted with lush green islands and a wind swept grass spotted beach. There were glassy peeling waves but they were too small to surf. I think that we were too far into the bay and will venture out further tomorrow.
The crew on this trip is a great balance. There are four people who have been awarded CODE Keepers, three employees from Alaska Brewery, and a marine debris scientist. The four CODE keepers include a former Coast Guard officer, applying for her phD in oceanography; a botanist/surfer/activist who lives in a trailer in Santa Barbara near the fabled ranch; a solar salesman who works with Surfrider in San Diego, and me an plastic activist eco-artist and retail software executive.
The crew from Alaska Brewery is equally diverse: a marketing expert who is our host, an accountant (who won’t tell us their revenue since they are private), and a brewer. The brewer is Steve, one of eight brewers who run the whole brewery and he is an unexpected gem. He is a half Hawaiian who grew up on the North Shore of Oahu and spreads aloha all over AK. He has shared several cutting edge green practices from their brewery including giving clean water back to the city of Yakutat and feeding their by-products to cattle. I’m sure we will learn more about this throughout the trip.
Our first beach clean up was beautiful but sad. At first glance, the beach seemed very clean. I thought that we would be doing a lot of surfing if all the beaches were this clean. But, as I changed my focus I saw it. The same plastic chips in the high tide line that I’ve seen in Indonesia, Central America, and California. There was also plenty of fishing debris that appeared to be locally generated. The small plasict however did not seem to come from here. There were bottle tops in Korean and small chips too numerous for this small town. The garbage and plastic are in the ocean and are washing up here. They are part of our eco-system and cannot be removed from the beaches and water around the world. The best we can do is try to stem the stead flow into the system.
Whenever a group of strangers gets together in a “bunk room” environment, there is a learning curve of getting to know each other. This group has gelled together remarkably fast. Everyone is thirsty to learn about environmentalism from each other and to have some AK-style fun and adventure doing it. Being sponsored by a brewery has some distinct advantages. We have several kegs of fresh AK beer sitting on out porch, chilling on ice. The outside temp would keep them cold but we want them really cold! The AK White is the favorite so far. If we have any questions about the ingredients, production, volume, or bottling we have Steve ready to enthusiastically answer our questions.
As the night time temperature dropped I decided to bring in my wetsuit from the truck so it would be nice and toasty in the morning. Stepping into the chilly night I looked up to see an amazing blanket of twinkling stars that you can’t see in San Francisco. The Milky Way stretched across the sky and I felt very small among the vast sky. In some ways, out beach clean-up is small. Just one isolated beach in the middle of Alaska, just 10 bags of trash among thousands of tons of trash and plastic all over the ocean and beaches. However, I’m hopeful that our efforts will span beyond this beach and this town. If we can show people how much trash is washing up in this pristine, isolated place then maybe they will reconsider how we are treating the oceans. Maybe we can stop the plastic wave.
