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Overcast Keeping city beaches clean
Environmentalists secure hundreds of new garbage cans, recycling bins for Long Beach
Members of the Sludge Stoppers Task Force and the Long Beach Surfer’s Association teamed up recently for an initiative that led to the placement of 300 new garbage cans and recycling bins along the city’s beaches in an effort to keep Long Beach clean and eco-friendly.
On Thursday, May 31, Sludge Stopper co-founder Scott Bochner gathered a crew of about 12 Long Beach High School students to help with the initiative.
“Scott got 200 bins in support of local businesses to get covers for them,” said LBSA member Will Hallet. “We’ll put the support stickers on the bins themselves and get them up on the boardwalk and we’ll have a recycling program on the boardwalk this summer, which is something we never had before.”
Bochner explained that the old garbage cans didn’t have any covers, and at the end of the day, seagulls would rip all the trash out, which would eventually wind up in the ocean.
Sludge Stoppers and the Long Beach Surfer’s Association recently approached the city in the hopes of launching a community project that would lead to new recycling bins on the boardwalks “so we can put bottles and cans in and covers on there so the debris doesn’t wash into the ocean,” Bochner said.
Bochner said he spoke to members of the City Council and City manager Jack Schnirman to come up with a plan and make it a high school community project, at no cost to the city.
“The kids came out to do it and it’s a great thing,” Bochner said.
Bochner also reached out to community-based groups for sponsorships. Marketing coordinator Chris Spinner and sales representative Mike Dunne of EmPower Solar, were among those who jumped on board.
“We’ve actually been talking about doing something like this for Long Beach for a while and I saw this article and mentioned it to my boss and he was like, ‘Let’s buy all of them,’” Spinner said. “So we called up the town and told them that we were interested in purchasing [the garbage cans] for the town and just donating them.”
Spinner said EmPower Solar purchased 100 of the green recycling cans, which can now be found on all the boardwalks.
