Florida DEP ‘2023 Environmental Stewardship Award Goes To….
We were thrilled to receive the Florida Department of Environmental Protections ‘2023 Environmental Stewardship’ award due to our advocacy and community engagement efforts.
Cigarette Ban in City of Miami Beach parks and beaches
Here in Miami Beach, we have spent a decade trying to eliminate cigarette butt litter in very creative and engaging ways including: We’ve produced and handed out 10,000+ reusable pocket ashtrays (made of recycled material of course) (see the pocket ashtray program here) We partnered with Surfrider and the City of Miami Beach to deploy 100 […]
How we eliminated 2.5 MILLION Single-Use Plastic Bottles
100% Plastic Free Soda and Water Contract for the City of Miami Beach We single-handedly tanked a 10-year renewal of an exclusive beverage contract between Coca-Cola and the City of Miami Beach that would have put an additional 25 million single-use plastic bottles (400,000 pounds) onto our beaches while leaving taxpayers to fund the cleanup […]
Our Recent Wins in the Fight against Marine Debris and Single-Use Plastics
Miami Beach Single-use plastics ban! (thanks to our Activism) Looks like our August 2017 causeway cleanup with then-candidate, now Mayor Gelber made a big impact. Miami Beach has JUST passed a ban on single-use plastic bags and plastic straws/stirrers on city property. Thank you to Mayor Dan Gelber for initiating this and to Miami Beach Commissioner Michael Gongora for co-sponsoring […]
Students becoming Change Makers
Commissioner Ken Russell proclaims May 12, 2016 as “Henry West Lab 5th Grade Class Day” for their work in raising awareness of plastic trash in Biscayne Bay and taking action with shoreline cleanups. Story after the video. It all started with an exceptional teacher who invited me to come in and give a presentation on Plastic […]
See something, Say something
I did a little unplanned cleanup while on vacation at Blue Springs State Park in Florida the other day when I discovered polystyrene pieces littered where tons of birds hang out just to the left of the canoe rental launch. Come to figure out that the foam pieces came from uncovered foam buoys that the […]
Miami Beach BANS Polystyrene
In a major win for environmental activists (including myself, Michael DeFilippi, Surfrider SoFla, and Biscayne Bay Water Keepers), The City of Miami Beach has voted UNANIMOUSLY to ban Polystyrene food takeout containers from Miami Beach parks and sidewalk cafes. City vendors and restaurants that operate on city sidewalks cannot use the product. The ban was […]
How much trash is actually in Stormwater systems??
When you go to a doctor complaining of chest pains, he will say you probably have clogged arteries. But he won’t know how bad it is until he cracks open your chest and sees the arteries. Well, someone video’ed the workers repairing one of the storm drains here in Miami Beach – and HOLY MOLEY […]
Lobbying City of Miami Beach to ban Polystyrene Food Containers
Had a good day lobbying the City of Miami Beach with my allies Michael DeFilippi, Surfrider SoFla, and Sean ‘Birdman’ Gould (Birdmans Trash Initiative) to ban Polystyrene (similar to Styrofoam) Take Out containers and cups. As usual, I decided to bring visual aids – 2 shopping bags full of foam that I picked up in […]
Doebler presents trash findings to Flood Committee
Dave Doebler presents his findings to the Mayors Special Flood Committee that “Clogged Storm Drains Are Contributing to Street Flooding”which correlates trash from the street level contributing to the major flooding issue the city is preparing to spend up to $400 million on fixing. Until now, no one has discovered that the existing storm drains […]