Fore the Ocean
Donation protected
Please go to our new campaign!! https://www.gofundme.com/fore-the-waves
Dear Friends and Family,
In 2009, CNN and The New York Times reported that 300 million golf balls are lost every year in the United States. How many of those end up in the oceans? Nobody knows.
This summer, while free-diving, we discovered thousands of golf balls below the surface, rolling around, breaking apart and polluting the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary. Over the last 6 months, we have removed over 4,000 golf balls from the ocean floor of just one small cove in Carmel Bay below Pebble Beach Golf Course. This equates to 400 pounds of plastic, or 72 entire square feet of plastic seafloor, now removed.
Many of these balls have a rubber band core that unravels into a “spaghetti string” mess in the ocean. This is a huge problem because to fish and birds, it looks just like seagrass, their food. Once this plastic string is consumed, the animals feel like they are full and stop eating, but they end up starving to death. In addition, we learned that golf balls usually have a solid core that contains Zinc Acrylate. The UN's GHS (Globally Harmonized System of classification and labeling of hazardous chemicals) has classified Zinc Acrylate as "very toxic to aquatic organisms, may cause adverse long-term effects in the aquatic environment."
We are working to create a partnership with local organizations including The Pebble Beach Company, The Monterey Bay Aquarium and the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary to assess the scope of the problem and how to clean it up.
As you may know, we are both outdoor enthusiasts. We spend our free time either backpacking or in the ocean. Last year, we were inspired to apply to The Island School, a high-school marine science and sustainability-based study abroad program. Our dream has become a reality, and we are both thrilled to be spending our spring semester of 2017 immersed in ocean conservation studies!
One of the reasons we were drawn to study at The Island School is their research on marine debris. This is a subject that is very important to us since we live on the coast, and we see the crisis, firsthand. Every time we go to the beach, the existance of mankind is overly apparent with the amount of trash littering our shores.
We hope that you can join us in our effort to raise awareness, find solutions, and protect the essential resource that is our ocean. Some people raise money by running marathons, hosting auctions or selling cookies. But we are doing something different. We are trying to protect our ocean and remove thousands of golf balls. By donating to our campaign, you will help fund our education, becoming partners as we tackle the global environmental problems our generation is facing.
Thank you so much,
Alex Weber and Jack Johnston
Dear Friends and Family,
In 2009, CNN and The New York Times reported that 300 million golf balls are lost every year in the United States. How many of those end up in the oceans? Nobody knows.
This summer, while free-diving, we discovered thousands of golf balls below the surface, rolling around, breaking apart and polluting the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary. Over the last 6 months, we have removed over 4,000 golf balls from the ocean floor of just one small cove in Carmel Bay below Pebble Beach Golf Course. This equates to 400 pounds of plastic, or 72 entire square feet of plastic seafloor, now removed.
Many of these balls have a rubber band core that unravels into a “spaghetti string” mess in the ocean. This is a huge problem because to fish and birds, it looks just like seagrass, their food. Once this plastic string is consumed, the animals feel like they are full and stop eating, but they end up starving to death. In addition, we learned that golf balls usually have a solid core that contains Zinc Acrylate. The UN's GHS (Globally Harmonized System of classification and labeling of hazardous chemicals) has classified Zinc Acrylate as "very toxic to aquatic organisms, may cause adverse long-term effects in the aquatic environment."
We are working to create a partnership with local organizations including The Pebble Beach Company, The Monterey Bay Aquarium and the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary to assess the scope of the problem and how to clean it up.
As you may know, we are both outdoor enthusiasts. We spend our free time either backpacking or in the ocean. Last year, we were inspired to apply to The Island School, a high-school marine science and sustainability-based study abroad program. Our dream has become a reality, and we are both thrilled to be spending our spring semester of 2017 immersed in ocean conservation studies!
One of the reasons we were drawn to study at The Island School is their research on marine debris. This is a subject that is very important to us since we live on the coast, and we see the crisis, firsthand. Every time we go to the beach, the existance of mankind is overly apparent with the amount of trash littering our shores.
We hope that you can join us in our effort to raise awareness, find solutions, and protect the essential resource that is our ocean. Some people raise money by running marathons, hosting auctions or selling cookies. But we are doing something different. We are trying to protect our ocean and remove thousands of golf balls. By donating to our campaign, you will help fund our education, becoming partners as we tackle the global environmental problems our generation is facing.
Thank you so much,
Alex Weber and Jack Johnston
Organizer and beneficiary
Alex Weber
Organizer
Carmel Highlands, CA
John Johnston
Beneficiary