Silver Lake Clean Up on Sunday, October 4!

In order to get the ball rolling again on clean up efforts after an especially long, hot summer, we are going to keep it local and hold our next clean up in Silver Lake on Sunday, October 4 at 10am. We will be meeting at the corner of Sunset and Sanborn/Santa Monica, right at Sunset Junction. Bring yourself, significant others, friends, pets, anybody willing to lend a helping hand as we start off the fall clean up season!!!

As always, look for us in the green clean up t-shirts. Map below:

View Larger Map

Summer Heat Hiatus

Some people have asked what happened to us over the last month. Rest assured, we are still here to fight the good fight against litter in our fine city! Our last clean up, however, was plagued by scorching heat on the streets and required a lot of water to keep our volunteers hydrated. Therefore, we decided to take a brief break during the sweltering lat August months.

Our next clean up will be on the weekend of September 12-13. Hopefully it will have cooled down a little bit by that time. If anybody has any suggestions for locations, please feel free to post here or to e-mail us at lacleanup@gmail.com.

Vermont/Beverly Clean Up Pictures

Sorry for the long delay in posting pictures of our clean up, but I wanted to make sure to thank everybody who came out for our Vermont/Beverly clean up!

Pictures of the event below:

Our morning clean up team at the Vermont/Beverly subway stop. It was an especially hot day, but we managed to do a good amount of cleaning!

At this point, I think people just wanted to get out of the sun....thanks to everybody who came out!
Some of the trash bags that we filled up around the intersection!

Do Your Part for California Beaches

Today's LA Times has an article about the poor water quality in Los Angeles County beaches due to urban runoff. Our goal at the LA Neighborhood Clean Up Project is to prevent problems like urban run-off to the extent we can. Unfortunately, however, the problem persists in our county and it only hurts our coastline. An excerpt from the story below:

"Although California may be famous for its surfing and swimming, the state ranked among the worst in beach water quality nationwide, coming in 22nd out of 30 coastal states. Los Angeles County was home to the most polluted beach water, with 20% of samples exceeding state standards.
. . .
"Bacteria can flow into beach water from sewage accidents such as the spill that forced closures in Long Beach on Monday. Storm water flowing through urban areas can also pick up animal waste, fertilizer, motor oil and other contaminants that are dumped into the ocean."

Check out the full story here.

Vermont/Beverly Clean Up Sat 7/11 at 10am!

Hey all, it has been a brief period of inactivity due to the holidays and hectic work schedules, but we are back on our game now! Join us for our next clean up this Saturday, July 10 at 10am at the corner of Vermont and Beverly!

There is plenty of metered and non-metered street parking in the area, but you can also leave the car at home and take the subway to the Vermont/Beverly stop on the Red Line. You will see us in the green t-shirts on the corner by the subway stop. As always, we will have Tang's donuts for our volunteers (maybe we will even work on bringing some fruit or something as an alternative).

Everybody is welcome and we are looking forward to having a great summer event!


View Larger Map

East Hollywood Clean Up Wrap Up

Thanks to all of those who came out for our East Hollywood clean up. We had a great time and got some great support from the people in the area, even those people just hanging out at the Hollywood and Western subway stop! It was a lot of fun. We took very few pictures but we posted some below. Until next time, keeps those streets clean!

John is going for the high five in that picture, but nobody else is going along.

A picture of a few of our volunteers from the day.

The fruits of our effort, a truck full of trash.

Ahhh, East Hollywood, will the streets ever be clean? With our volunteers, maybe...

East Hollywood Clean Up on June 14!

Join the LA Neighborhood Clean Up Project on June 14 at 10 a.m. to help clean up the streets of East Hollywood! We will be meeting at the corner of Hollywood and Western at the Red Line Metro stop. You will be able to spot us in our green t-shirts. Everybody is welcome to come help clean up this wonderful area of Los Angeles (maybe even grab some great food afterward in Thai Town)!

Below is a map of the intersection for your convenience:


View Larger Map

LA Team Effort Interview

A while back John and Andrea did an interview with the LA Stormwateer Program. Recently, they posted excerpts from the interview on their LA Team Effort blog, which chronicles LANCUP's humble origins. An excerpt of the post is contained below, the full LA Team Effort post can be found here.

Andrea Ambrose and John Lobato, Co-Founders of Los Angeles Neighborhood Clean Up Project (LANCUP), talk about their organization. LANCUP was started in November, 2008 and organizes local residents in frequent clean-up events around the city.

SP: How did you first get involved in your local community and what was your motivation for doing so?

Andrea Ambrose and John Lobato: The two of us were driving down Virgil Avenue on the border of Silver Lake and East Hollywood and we started talking about how much trash was on the streets in that area. A couple of weeks later, we drove down the same street and saw that there was even more trash that had accumulated, so we decided to just go to Home Depot, buy some brooms, and start cleaning up the streets ourselves. People on Virgil probably thought we were crazy those first few times that we went out to clean, but over time we got people to come out and help and after a number of events we have gathered a great group of community volunteers who help at clean-ups. Since that time, we have worked with the Silver Lake Neighborhood Council and the Greater Echo Park and Elysian Park Neighborhood Council in organizing events. Everybody has been really enthusiastic about helping out and volunteering.

SP: What are your plans for the future? What projects do you have planned?

Andrea Ambrose and John Lobato: We are planning on expanding our geographic reach to other areas of Los Angeles. We are always looking for people who live in different neighborhoods to act as Neighborhood Coordinators, to help us plan events. We have also started a campaign to get more trash cans installed in our area. When we were cleaning up on Virgil, we walked five blocks before running into a trash can. We figure that part of the reason there is so much trash is due to the fact that there are not enough trash cans. As parts of Los Angeles become more walkable, the City needs to compensate and install more trash cans. Our local businesses and city council members seem pretty enthusiastic about the idea—the biggest (and most obvious) problem is money. Installing a new trash can costs about $10,000. We are considering throwing a fundraiser with the help of local businesses.

Virgil Ave Clean Up Wrap Up

A great contingent of the Los Angeles Neighborhood Clean Up Project came out for last week's Virgil Ave clean up on the edge of Silver Lake and East Hollywood. We cleaned up a few blocks in a neighborhood that could definitely use it, and, most of all got to spend time with some of our great members. Below are some pictures of the clean up and we hope you join us at the next one!


Some of our clean up team returns, check out those awesome t-shirts!


The celebration ensues....good cast of characters!


Take two, John looks less prepared for this picture...


Ahhh, people enjoy our events so much, see the smiles?


The remnants of our clean up supplies...they look lonely...

Effectiveness of Catch Basin Screen Covers

An interesting conversation is taking place over at the LAist regarding the utility of catch basin screen covers. If you are not familiar with the catch basin screen covers, they are essentially screens placed over storm drains intended to allow water, but not the accompanying trash runoff, to flow down the storm drains. Although these are certainly an improvement, our observation has been that the trash tends to accumulate around the screens and is rarely swept up properly by the street sweepers.

The city of Los Angeles has installed a number of these screen covers, focusing particularly on the neighborhoods of Silver Lake, East Hollywood, Echo Park and other high-trash areas.

Has anybody come across any places where these screens are particularly effective? Is there anyway that we could improve upon the screens or make them more effective?

LA County Beaches, Still a Bummer

Heal the Bay released their annual California Beach Report Card earlier today. No surprise, but LA county beaches dominated the list of Top 10 "Beach Bummers" with the worst water quality in the state.

One of our organization's primary goals is to help prevent the runoff of the interior parts of the cities from reaching our city's beaches. The release of Heal the Bay's study demonstrates why it is essential to take care of our cities and beaches. If there is a silver lining to the study, it is the following statement in Heal the Bay's press release:

"One of the reasons that Los Angeles County lags in water quality is the fact that its monitoring agencies collect samples directly in front of flowing stormdrains and creeks. Monitoring at these 'point zero' locations, where polluted runoff often pools, is the best way to ensure that health risks to swimmers are captured in water quality data."

The LAist points out that some of the beaches listed below, however, are "nowhere near storm drains," such as Avalon Beach on Catalina Island.

Top 10 Beach Bummers

1. Avalon Harbor Beach on Catalina Island (Los Angeles County)
2. Cabrillo Beach harborside (Los Angeles County)
3. Pismo Beach Pier (San Luis Obispo County)
4. Colorado Lagoon (Los Angeles County)
5. Santa Monica Municipal Pier (Los Angeles County)
6. City of Long Beach at LA River outlet (Los Angeles County)
7. Poche Beach (Orange County)
8. Surfrider Beach at Malibu Creek (Los Angeles County)
9. Campbell Cove State Park Beach (Sonoma County)
10. Doheny Beach at San Juan Creek (Orange County)

Heal the Bay's full report card available here.

Virgil Ave Clean Up Sunday May 17

Please join us this Sunday, May 17th to clean up the area where the LA Neighborhood Clean Up Project first got its start (for some LANCUP history, click here)-- Virgil and Melrose! We will meet at 10 a.m. at the corner of Melrose and Virgil (Map).

Look out for us, we will be in the green t-shirts. We will bring the supplies and Tang's donuts, we just need you! Friends, families, pets, and kids of all ages welcome.

We also hear that there is a new record store/barbeque spot at Bellevue and Hoover, right around the corner, which may be work checking out after.

Where does all that trash go?

You may have always wondered...sure, I see those signs "drains to the ocean." Where does it go when it drains to the ocean though? Well, there is a "Great Pacific Garbage Patch," a huge region in the middle of the Pacific Ocean where all of the trash eventually ends up due to a combination of winds and tides. You can read more about it here.

Also, if you want to see a documentary that was aired on Good Morning America you can watch below. Remember, be careful with your trash!

April 25 Echo Park Wrap Up!

Just wanted to say a big thank you to everybody who came out to lend a hand to our Echo Park clean up this past Saturday. It was a great event and we got fantastic whether. It was wonderful to see so many familiar faces along with a number of new ones! We are glad that we have developed such a great group of people in Echo Park and we hope that some of you will join us at other events around town!

Yeah, we are putting the cutest picture first, kids helping always makes for the best pictures!


John with George from the city...he looks very happy about the shovels...very happy:



Two of our great returning volunteers, seriously Tommy we will get you a t-shirt!


Chris and Holly showing off the immense size of the city trash bags:


John is pointing at something here...not really sure what!:


Here is a picture of our unofficial mascot "Salsa"...why is that his name? "Because people like to say Salsa"...:

A picture of the trash gathered in the back of the city truck...thanks George!:

Reminder! Echo Park Clean Up on April 25!

Join the LA Neighborhood Clean Up Project at 10 AM on April 25 in Echo Park for a (post) Earth Day clean up!!! We know Earth Day is actually April 22, but we thought we would make it easier on everybody to take the time to show up. We are meeting at the corner of Sunset and Echo Park Blvd, in the Walgreens parking lot. As always, we will provide donuts from Tang's!

You can sign up on our USA Service website: http://www.usaservice.org/page/event/detail/4rxyg

Check it out and sign up!

As always, you can also follow us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/LANCUP

Future Clean Up Projects in Los Angeles

Do you know an area that could use a clean up? Do you want to help organize a clean up in your neighborhood or with your street? Are you looking for an office volunteer project? Or do you just want to lend a helping hand?

Feel free to let us know any time as we are always willing to help out with planning and coordinating events across the city of Los Angeles! Just feel free to e-mail at lacleanup@gmail.com

Silver Lake Earth Day Event

The Silver Lake Chamber of Commerce is holding an Earth Day event in Triangle Park at the corner of Griffith Park Blvd and Sunset Blvd...check it out, we are planning on stopping by!

Who: Silver Lake Chamber Green Committee

What: The Silver Lake Chamber of Commerce Green Committee will create a ball made of nearly 6,000 plastic bags--an estimate of the number of plastic bags Silver Lake stores use in a month--on Earth Day Wednesday, April 22 from 10 am to 4 pm. The plastic bags will be tied and wound into a giant ball by volunteers. The Earth Day Plastic Ball will be available to local schools and environmental groups to promote waste reduction and protecting our environment from the blight of plastic bags. Members of the public are urged to bring discarded plastic bags to the event.

When: Wednesday April 22 - 10 am to 4 pm (Earth Day)

Where: Sunset Junction Triangle Park 3700 Sunset Blvd (north side of street between Edgecliff and Maltman Ave)

Echo Park Earth Day Clean Up April 25!

Join the LA Neighborhood Clean Up Project at 10 AM on April 25 in Echo Park for a (post) Earth Day clean up!!! We know Earth Day is actually April 22, but we thought we would make it easier on everybody to take the time to show up. We are meeting at the corner of Sunset and Echo Park Blvd, in the Walgreens parking lot. As always, we will provide donuts from Tang's!

You can sign up on our USA Service website: http://www.usaservice.org/page/event/detail/4rxyg

Check it out and sign up!

As always, you can also follow us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/LANCUP

Success!

We had a great day at the Koreatown clean up! It was great to see so many familiar faces and so many new ones. Special thanks goes out to the Key Club for bringing so many people to help with the clean up. This area was especially dirty and it took a lot of elbow grease but everybody should be really proud of hte efforts made today and we had a lot of community members who were really appreciative and supportive, which is what it is all about. Below are some pictures from the event!

Distributing supplies at the beginning of the event:


Distributing more supplies:


George from the city, helping out with supplies:


Are we secret agents of clean up?


Tommy came out again, he's our favorite actor/cleaner!


George likes our donuts!

John was really excited about something here:

Some of our volunteers coming back with trash:

A successful day!

Some of the trash we collected:

Koreatown Clean Up Sunday, March 29 at 10am

All, our next clean up will take us over to the edge of Koreatown! We will be meeting at the corner of 3rd and Vermont on Sunday, March 29th at 10am. As always, look for the people in the green t-shirts. We will be working with the city to provide supplies, so all you need to bring is an enthusiastic attitude and that's about it.

Sign up at our service page here


View Larger Map

Battery Disposal

Julia Miller, one of our board members, has been asked a couple of times about the proper disposal of batteries - if you have been to one of our events she is usually the one walking around with batteries in her hands. She passed along the following note so I figured I would share it with all of you

Hello LANCUPpers!

I had a few people ask me about battery disposal on Sunday, and I thought it might be useful to post some info on the blog about where to go to take used batteries. This webpage: http://dpw.lacounty.gov/epd/Recycling/crm.cfm, provides info on how to get the battery information, plus a lot of interesting info on recycling (like what can be recycled in LA, and what can't).

Julia

Photos from Silver Lake clean up

Thanks again to all of our volunteers who turned out for the Silver Lake clean up on March 15. Below are some pictures from the clean up and everybody should come out for out next event in two weeks in Koreatown!

Our group before it heads out for the clean up:


Our volunteers have fun!


Trash in broken news bins makes us sad though :(


But, we find time to laugh


Andrea is all business when she is planning


Again, nothing but business!


The city is kind enough to bring supplies for the clean ups!


Just some of the trash we picked up in Silver Lake

Silver Lake Clean Up March 15

Join us on Sunday, March 15 at 10 am for a clean up in Silver Lake. The clean up crew will meet on the corner of Griffith Park Blvd and Sunset Blvd in the small park located at that intersection. Just look for the people in the green t-shirts!

Click here for a link to our service sign up page!

Clean Up Schedule

Here is a calendar of those clean ups that we have scheduled for the coming month. If you are interested in helping to organize a clean up or want have a clean up in your area, feel free to e-mail us and let us know!

Sunday, March 15, 10 am in Silver Lake: Meet at the corner of Sunset Blvd and Griffith Park Blvd in the small park, free metered parking on Sunday!

Sunday, March 29, 10 am in Korea Town: Exact meeting location still to be determined, but if you have a specific area you think we should go to, let us know.

Sunday, April 12, 10 am in Eagle Rock: Currently being organized with one of our Eagle Rock members, details to follow

Sunday, April 19, 10 am in West Los Angeles: Currently being organized with one of our west side residents, details to follow.

Reusable Bags!? New York Times Says Good Luck!

Everybody who joined us for the Echo Park clean up this past Saturday is probably well aware of the perils of using plastics bags (we have all been warned!!!!). Well, Julia, one of our dedicated board members, came across this article today and after going to the event this Saturday she thought she would share it with the group. It seems, as one of our volunteers was saying on Saturday, although there is a lot of talk on the issue, not a whole lot of action.

Click here for the link

Thank you to everyone who came out to clean up last weekend!

We wanted to thank all of you who came out to help us clean up Echo Park on Sunday!  We know, there was no sunshine as promised, and we apologize for that.  Above is a picture of just some of the trash that we picked up...Go team! (Yeah, the picture is terrible, we know, cell phone camera...John forgot his camera...even though he was reminded to bring it...)

Reminder: Echo Park Clean Up February 22

Hi all readers, just wanted to let everybody know that our next clean up will be Sunday, February 22 at 10 am in Echo Park. As many of you know, there has been a spat of crime in the Silver Lake/Echo Park area in recent weeks, particularly around Sunset Blvd. It would be great to get a lot of people to come out and help clean up the area and show some community involvement and solidarity while cleaning up the area!

We will be meeting at 10 am at the corner of Sunset and Alvarado (and it's a Sunday, so free metered parking, which is nice), you will see us in the green t-shirts on that corner.

As always, you can sign up at the service website, here, or just e-mail us so that we get an idea of numbers. We are looking forward to a great event!

They Like Us, They Really Really Like Us!!!

Ummm, or they don't. Some people do not care too much for people who want to make the city a better place, nor do they care about following the rules of grammar....anyway, thought we would share a recent sign up we received for one of our events. Taking it in a light-hearted manner, it is rather funny! Below we will try to answer this person's concerns.

You're [sic] "shiny happy people" approach to "cleaning up
the neighborhood" is a f***ng joke like all of you
little hitler youth in the making. What is your
affiliation with USAservice.org? Are you aware of
Obamas [sic] little non profit youth brigades? hitler juge

To answer the inquiries
(1) Our affiliation with USAservice is that it provides a convenient forum for people to sign up to events and receive information. That's about it.
(2) Are we aware of Obama's little non profit youth brigades? No, we cannot say we are. But are those people volunteers? We could always use more of those...

Thanks for the posting though, we know that we are not making a difference until people start caring, whether in productive or unproductive ways, so at least this lets us know we are on the right track. Plus, it required you to sign up, so now it looks like we have one more person coming to our clean up event! Thanks!

L.A. Stormwater Program Map

Came across this earlier today and thought it would be a good little map to share. It is a map from the L.A. Stormwater Program that lays out the high trash areas of Los Angeles, roll over to see "high," "medium," and "low."

Really interesting.

Click here to see the map.

Echo Park Clean Up on February 22!!!

Hi all readers, just wanted to let everybody know that our next clean up will be Sunday, February 22 at 10 am in Echo Park. As many of you know, there has been a spat of crime in the Silver Lake/Echo Park area in recent weeks, particularly around Sunset Blvd. It would be great to get a lot of people to come out and help clean up the area and show some community involvement and solidarity while cleaning up the area!

We will be meeting at 10 am at the corner of Sunset and Alvarado (and it's a Sunday, so free metered parking, which is nice), you will see us in the green t-shirts on that corner.

As always, you can sign up at the service website, here, or just e-mail us so that we get an idea of numbers. We are looking forward to a great event!

Follow up on Echo Park Clean Up

We just wanted to thank everybody who came out to the Echo Park clean up on January 31st, we had a great group of volunteers and could not have had a successful day without all of your efforts!!!!

Below are some pictures from our clean up, though, the battery on our camera died, so sorry for having a limited amount of pictures!!!


Two of our younger volunteers drawing people toward our event!:

Jose Sigala, of the Echo Park and Elysian Park Neighborhood Council, speaking before the clean up:


Andrea, giving out nametags (she loves, loves nametags):


The tools provided by the city, much appreciated:


Food provided by the Neighborhood Council, just as appreciated!!!!:

Photos from Service Day Clean Up

Just wanted to post some photos from the Service Day clean up. We had such a good turn out, and we appreciate everybody who came out!

Some of our volunteers signing in:


John before my first spanish television interview


John after his first spanish language interview


A few of our younger volunteers:


Some project runway fans may recognize Sweet P from Project Runway in the photo below:


A few of our dedicated volunteers: