{"id":1803,"date":"2009-12-01T11:02:51","date_gmt":"2009-12-01T19:02:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mlmlblog.wordpress.com\/?p=1803"},"modified":"2009-12-01T11:02:51","modified_gmt":"2009-12-01T19:02:51","slug":"shower-of-shovels","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mlml.sjsu.edu\/student-life\/2009\/12\/01\/shower-of-shovels\/","title":{"rendered":"Shower of Shovels in a Plastic Ocean"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Playtime's over - when toys are left on the beach, they're no better than trash. (photo: E. Loury)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Erin Loury<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

by Erin Loury<\/a>, Ichthyology Lab<\/p>\n

Do you remember that big storm that soaked the central coast in mid October?\u00a0 What I remember most is not how scary the driving was in that first big rain of the season, or the sound of the downpour on my roof \u2013 what stands out for me is the pile of shovels the storm left in its wake.<\/p>\n

Yes, shovels.\u00a0 When the weather cleared, I paid a visit to my local beach to observe the fall-out.\u00a0\u00a0 The sand was strewn with kelp, and fair amount of trash.\u00a0 But what floored me were the nine, count\u2019em nine<\/em> plastic shovels pictured above that I picked up in a half-mile stretch of beach.\u00a0\u00a0 Not to mention passing a few other beach walkers with colorful shovels in their hands too!<\/p>\n

So you\u2019re thinking, what\u2019s the big deal?\u00a0 A bunch of kids left their shovels on the beach.\u00a0 Consider this: even if those shovels \u00a0were buried in the deepest of sand moats, a good storm can unearth them and sweep them out to sea.\u00a0 Add a few spin-and-tumble cycles in the surf zone, and suddenly a happy, harmless shovel is reduced to a plastic pile of marine debris.<\/p>\n

And marine debris is a Big Deal, especially of the plastic variety:<\/p>\n

[youtube=http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=w39-gdWW4-E&feature=player_embedded#]<\/p>\n

Learn more about science conducted on marine debris by checking out the SEAPLEX expedition page<\/a> for more info.\u00a0 Miriam at the Oyster\u2019s Garter also has many great posts on this subject<\/a> if you want to learn more.<\/p>\n

You can be a beach hero by conducting your own Coastal Cleanup Day<\/a> at your local beach after a storm.\u00a0\u00a0 And remember to pack out those toys you pack in when visiting the beach with kids in tow.\u00a0 Just think of all the lonely pails out there.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Shovels + Wave Action = Harmful Marine Debris (photo: E. Loury)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Erin Loury, Ichthyology Lab Do you remember that big storm that soaked the central coast in mid October?\u00a0 What I remember most is not how scary the driving was in that first big rain of the season, or the sound of the downpour on my roof \u2013 what stands out for me is the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":291,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1803","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"MLML Student Life","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/mlml.sjsu.edu\/student-life","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mlml.sjsu.edu\/student-life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1803","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mlml.sjsu.edu\/student-life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mlml.sjsu.edu\/student-life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mlml.sjsu.edu\/student-life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/291"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mlml.sjsu.edu\/student-life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1803"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mlml.sjsu.edu\/student-life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1803\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mlml.sjsu.edu\/student-life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1803"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mlml.sjsu.edu\/student-life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1803"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mlml.sjsu.edu\/student-life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1803"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}