Love the Ocean: Use Less Plastic

On Valentine's Day, please love the ocean and use less plastic!

OceanHealth.Org has been promoting a campaign on Facebook for about a month to encourage Valentine's Day shoppers to bring their reusable bags on this major consumer holiday. Please click to "attend" and RSVP to show your support http://tinyurl.com/lovetheocean.

OceanHealth.Org encourages you to show your love for that special someone in your life and the ocean on this Valentine's Day.

Seven Suggestions on How You Can Love the Ocean and Use Less Plastic on Valentine's Day:

1. Bring your reusable bag when you go shopping and/or say "no" when offered a plastic bag.

2. Pick a non-plastic gift to show your love. Really, is plastic the way to say, "I love you"?

3. How about wrapping your gift in a reusable shopping bag? OceanHealth.Org has a lovely bag with the logo for this campaign if you'd like one.

4. If you live near the ocean, take the time to visit and have a romantic walk on the beach, go surfing, go wildlife watching, or just to watch the sun set. Maybe even take a couple of minutes to pick up some marine debris while you're there or to even join a beach cleanup that weekend (check your local Surfrider for info: www.surfrider.org).

5. If you go out to dinner, remember to order only sustainable seafood (if you order it at all) and bring your own container for leftovers. You can save a plastic bag and other waste if you have your reusable bag and containers with you.

6. Consider donating on behalf of your love to the ocean charity of your choice. OceanHealth.Org would love you dearly for a donation to help our organization grow.

7. Share this event with your friends all over the world to spread the word.

The ocean thanks you and loves you back. ;-)

So if you're inspired (and we hope that you are), please keep up the spirit all year long and learn more about your oceans and how plastics are impacting our environment.

If you're here in the San Francisco area, the San Francisco Chapter of Surfrider Foundation is hosting a beach cleanup on Ocean Beach on Sunday, February 15, at 10 AM. Please check their website for details and upcoming beach cleanups.

If you'd like to learn more about how you can reduce plastics in your life, please check out one of my favorite blogs, Fake Plastic Fish.

Be sure to check out Surfrider's Rise Above Plastics campaign and sign up for their Plastics Pledge.

If you are looking for other ways to show your love for the oceans, then visit ThankYouOcean.Org. You can find lots of information, as well as link with ocean groups.

Oh, and if you're looking for a last minute Valentine's Day gift and you're in the Bay Area. Go online and buy a ticket for next week's San Francisco Ocean Film Festival.

* If you like the artwork for this campaign, please visit Karen Roze at Sacred Rose Tattoo in Berkeley, CA. Digital rendering by Giotto at Babyfaced Productions.

Please sign the Surfrider petition to protect our coasts

Currently on Facebook, the Causes application has a petition from the Surfrider Foundation that asks President-Elect Obama and the new Congress to act to protect our coastlines from risky oil drilling schemes. OceanHealth.Org supports Surfrider's call to reinstate the Offshore Drilling Moratorium and to ask our government to invest in renewable energy alternatives to oil dependence, which is contributing to the decline in ocean health as global warming increases and petroleum-based pollution remains a problem.

Please visit OceanHealth.Org on our Causes page and sign the petition: CLICK HERE!

While you're on Facebook, please join OceanHealth.Org's other pages:

OceanHealth.Org's Fan Page

OceanHealth.Org's Group Page

USDA kicks canned tuna from WIC

The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) drops toxic albacore tuna from the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC), but refuses to drop “light tuna” despite mercury risks.

Albacore tuna is high in toxic methylmercury, which can cause women and children brain and nervous system damage. Albacore tuna averages 0.383 parts per million (ppm) of mercury. In 2004, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) advised women and children to limit their consumption albacore tuna because of the risks. In California, the seafood mercury advises women and children to also avoid tuna commonly served as sushi, ahi, or tuna steaks. Fortunately, albacore tuna will no longer put low-income families at risk when they receive food through the WIC program.

There is an addition positive outcome after health advocacy campaigns contacted the USDA regarding this rule: After three decades, low-income women and children will no longer be forced to pick only tuna when looking for healthy canned seafood options. Now, the USDA can chose from salmon, sardines, and mackerel as low-mercury seafood options – getting the benefits of seafood without the risks associated with mercury in albacore tuna.

You can read the new rule online:
http://www.fns.usda.gov/wic/regspublished/foodpackages-interimrule.htm

Despite the USDA’s wise decision to drop albacore, the USDA will continue to offer “light tuna” to mothers who breastfeed. Canned light tuna averages 0.118 ppm of mercury, which is nearly 10 times more mercury than sardines (0.016 ppm) and more than canned salmon, which contains no detectable levels of mercury. This is an unnecessary risk for low-income mothers and their nursing children when alternatives exist that carry little or no risk.

The USDA program will continue to put WIC recipient families at risk as long as canned light tuna is kept as an option. The failing tuna industry should not be subsidized at the expense of women and children in the US. Avoid buying canned tuna and speak out against this portion of the interim rule for WIC food packages.

TAKE ACTION:

Please submit your comments today to ask the USDA to remove light tuna from the WIC program and to support the inclusion of other no-mercury or low-mercury canned fish options for low-income women who are breastfeeding. Please submit your comments before the rule goes into effect on February 8, 2008.

Instructions:

Federal eRulemaking Portal: Go to http://www.regulations.gov, select ‘‘Food and Nutrition Service,’’ from the agency drop-down menu, then click ‘‘Submit.’’ In the Docket ID column, select FNS–2006–0037 to submit or view public comments and to view supporting and related materials available electronically.

Radio Interview about Mercury in Fish

While working at GotMercury.Org, I did an interview with the great people at the National Radio Project about mercury in seafood with a focus on mercury in San Francisco Bay, the lawsuits under Proposition 65, and the WIC program that gives breastfeeding women canned mercury despite the risks.

You can listen to the entire program online at:
http://www.radioproject.org/archive/2007/1207.html

Let me know what you think!

OceanHealth.Org posts to Yelp! Reviewing businesses for ocean-friendly, healthy seafood options.

A fun resource for finding reviews for just about anything these days is Yelp. One thing that was noticeably lacking things on Yelp was reviews that took into account the impact the restaurants and other businesses that sell seafood are having on your health and on the health of our oceans.

Now OceanHealth.Org has begun reviewing San Francisco Bay Area restaurants and other businesses to rate how ocean-friendly and healthy they are.

Check out the OceanHealth.Org profile on Yelp and become a friend so that restaurants know that you care about your health and the health of our dwindling ocean resources.

http://oceanhealth.yelp.com

Please join the OceanHealth.Org effort by reviewing your restaurants, supermarkets, and other seafood businesses. Become a friend to OceanHealth.Org online to show your support for sustainable, healthy seafood.

Be sure to become a friend to OceanHealth.Org here on blogger, too! Subscribe for future uptdates about what you can do for ocean conservation and public health protection!

Thank you for your help! The future of the ocean is blue with you.


PS - OceanHealth.Org is also on MySpace.Com: http://myspace.com/oceanhealth