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:

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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 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!


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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...

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.

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

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


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Echo Park Clean Up on January 31!

To carry on the momentum of our last great event, we are going to pick up right where we left off and do a clean up in Echo Park along Sunset Blvd on Saturday, January 31st. We hope that all of you can make it and we are looking forward to a great clean up day!

The link to the USA Service site is here

Please sign up through the site just so we know how many people are going to be able to make it and please bring your friends!

Did you know The Buffalo News covers our events? Neither did we

Just came across this story earlier today from the Buffalo News, here's to everybody's work!

"In the hip Silverlake neighborhood of Los Angeles dozens of residents fanned out along Sunset Boulevard, picking its well-littered gutters and sidewalks clean of trash.

'We've never done this before,' said Helen Nasillski, a ballet instructor who was out collecting trash with her husband and two children. 'There's a different feeling in the air these couple of days.'"

Hey, it seems that Silver Lake is hip! Finally, we feel culturally relevant. Anyway, thank you Helen for coming out and there's a story about you in Buffalo!