Wow- I’m not sure about you.. but this summer is flying by! I started off the summer w/ an exciting 10-day adventure in Oaxaca Mexico, and a couple days after I flew back to California- my new team and I (Team SD Zero) participated in and won the final 2-day competition to conclude the 6mo Scripps-Rady Ocean Plastic Challenge !
It seems like just yesterday that I was starting the Scripps-Rady Ocean Plastic Pollution Challenge, which I wrote a little bit about in my previous blog post on how to use and waste less (especially single-use plastics). In a nutshell, this 6 mo (Jan-June 2021) accelerator program and competition aimed to create solutions to marine and coastal plastic pollution in San Diego County, California (USA). This program brought together a diverse group of people passionate about solving the plastic pollution problem, with backgrounds ranging across academia, nonprofit organizations, government, industry and other sectors. For the first three months, we attended virtual (zoom) sessions with speakers including policymakers, nonprofit leaders and scholars who research organizational and behavioral change. Afterwards, we were divided into different teams (‘Changing Human Behavior’, ‘Evaluation Solutions’, ‘Data Mapping’ and ‘Yes! In my Backyard, San Diego’), each focusing on specific aspects of the plastics pollution problem. For this part of the accelerator program, I was placed on the data-mapping team where we sought to collect, analyze and map plastic pollution data in San Diego County.
Being on the data mapping team was an awesome opportunity. Our specific goal in a nutshell was to analyze and map data on plastic pollution and related mitigation efforts in areas adjacent to and inside of the San Diego MPAs in the Pacific Ocean. I got to dive into all the available trash cleanup data portals- and then use my R-coding skills to subset and wrangle the data frames so that they were ready to use and map for the GIS mapping specialists on my team. Then I also did some graphics and stats in R as well to help visualize and analyze some of the trends we found. We ended up using the Marine Debris Tracker Data Portal (NOAA and National Geographic) and the Coastal Cleanup Data Portal (Ocean Conservancy), as these datasets were the most complete and accessible. On May 17th we presented our ArcGIS Story Map to the other teams and panelists- check out the full story map presentation here!
Our Data Mapping Team found two hotspots of plastic waste in the San Diego region:
(1) Areas visited by high numbers of tourists and special events
(2) River outlets from large rivers running through urban areas
We also found that the majority of plastic waste items (by count) are: 1) smoke-related products (cigarettes, cigars, packaging, e-cigarettes, vaping pens, etc) and 2) single-use food and beverage waste items (packing, serviceware, bottles, etc.).
However, on a positive note we found that bans work! Such as the notable plastic-bag bans which started as early as 2014, but most were fully implemented in San Diego County by 2016. You can see below in the graphic I compiled that the proportion of collected waste comprising of plastic bags significantly declines after 2014 in San Diego County!
Following the conclusion of my work in the data mapping team, we had a small break (at which point I ran off to Mexico), and then came back and were mixed up into new and smaller teams for our final 2-day competition from June 6th-8th to conclude this 6 mo accelerator program. My new team (Team SD Zero) comprised of: myself (USC Postdoctoral Fellow- science educator, researcher and data analyst), Lauren Hackney (MBA Candidate at UCSD Rady School of Management), Kristina Phipps (Contract Policy Analyst and Attorney at The Nature Conservancy), Tanya Torres (California Sea Grant Extension Fellow working with NOAA’s Marine Debris Program) and Jake Reynolds (The Behavioural Insights Team. Energy, Environment & Sustainability Policy, UK).
Drawing on behavioral science research we knew that although educational campaigns can raise the public’s awareness of environmental issues and result in public support for policy changes; these campaigns don’t typically affect people’s behaviors in the long term. The SD Zero team and I brainstormed potential solutions to the plastic pollution problem in San Diego by using existing information from all of our unique experiences and knowledge. During the 48 h – we came up with a proposal to implement a zero-waste event policy paired with a business accelerator. Our proposal centers around a policy change prohibiting single-use plastics at large events in San Diego (> 75 people), in addition to a business accelerator program to provide monetary support and resources to help organizations meet the new zero-waste requirements. The policy will leverage the city’s existing event permitting process and will require events to be single-use plastic-free or pay a fine and undergo zero-waste training. Events that become plastic-free will be certified as an ‘SD Zero Ocean Hero’ as their reward that they can publicly display.
Copyright 2021 by SD Zero
We based this proposed idea on data presented by my previous data mapping team and several case studies that have demonstrated the effectiveness of zero-waste related policies. Bans such as the well-known plastic bag bans remove plastics from the consumer choice context and therefore reduce both plastic usage and the amount of plastic waste that ends up along our coastlines and in our oceans.
Furthermore, my previous data mapping team demonstrated that events in San Diego are typically very close to the coastlines, and similar to tourism can be a source of plastic pollution that can then leak into our waterways and oceans (figure embedded below).
Events provide discrete opportunities for piloting and evaluating the impact of interventions. Furthermore, implementing this policy requires only a simple modification to the language of San Diego’s existing permitting rules for events, and our team has already identified local zero-waste businesses (linked at bottom) that can help event organizers transition away from single-use plastics. We know this policy will be effective based on other case studies. For example, through similar waste intervention mandates, > 4 k water bottles and 1 mil plastic bags can be avoided annually in the San Francisco Farmers Markets. In another example, Jack Johnson’s All At Once Greening tour (40 concerts) eliminated 36,000 single use plastic bottles and 200,000 single use plastic cups. We see this as a starting point and ability to create an early concrete success that can eventually be expanded to restaurants and other jurisdictions across the nation and globe- ultimately leading to cleaner and healthier oceans.
For the finale, we presented our proposal to the other challenge participants and the judging panel (comprised of 11 distinguished professionals). We were a bit shocked when we found out we won since all of the other ideas presented by the other teams were also pretty amazing! However, now I realize we won because our idea incorporated everything we had learned throughout the past 6 months- from policy to human behavior and our proposal was based firmly in the data with easy-to-implement structure. You can watch the finale embedded below!
Our prize for winning this challenge is a meeting with Dr. Gwen Nero (Director of Corporate Affiliates, Business Development, Industry Outreach, and Innovation at the Scripps Institute of Oceanography) and Ian Clampett (State and Local Government Relations at Scripps Institution of Oceanography) to help us strategize and connect to the right people so that we can hopefully put this policy and business accelerator into action! The meeting is coming up soon.. so I will post an update once there is more progress on this initiative!
Related Press:
https://dornsife.usc.edu/wrigley/environmental-studies-julie-hopper-wins-clean-beaches-competiti/
Businesses that can help you and your events become zero-waste and plastic-free!
Zero waste coaching: https://thinkzerollc.com/
Los Angeles: https://sustainla.com/event-planning
San Diego: https://www.ecocycle.org/zero-waste-events
- In San Diego- many rental companies, such as these below will rent out reusable serviceware:
- https://abbeypartyrentals.com/
- https://sandiegopartyrentals.com/price-list/
- https://www.platinumeventrentals.com/our-catalog
Denver and Boulder, Colorado: https://www.ecocycle.org/zero-waste-events#largeevents
Blog post I wrote on zero-waste tips for your everyday life:
https://julie-hopper.com/2021/02/28/sustainability-and-covid19-part-ii-wasting-less/
Dr. Julie V. Hopper 