Matt worked the Surfrider booth at the 6-Pack SUP Race to educate attendees about ocean plastic pollution!

By 2050 there will be more plastic in the ocean than fish – unless we do something about it! Zero Waste Forest City is helping to catalyze a community built art installation called “A 2050 Ocean”, meant to bring awareness to the global plastic crisis our planet faces today. This piece will be starting off during the 100 in 1 Day London, ON event. TO contribute, please bring your clean household plastics to add to the collective. By hanging the plastic from above, we will be simulating an underwater environment impacted by plastic pollution. Using this interactive installation we will dive below the surface and see the unfortunate reality our lakes, rivers and oceans face and the negative impacts of plastic to wildlife and the Earth as a whole. We hope to use this powerful visual to connect people of all ages with the waterways that support all life on Earth, no matter how far you live from an ocean, and discuss the many ways we can create positive change in our day to day lives to work towards a bright future of thriving oceans! Catch us at 211 King St for the second stage of the installation starting in July and briefly at the London Children's Museum for the third stage!

I hosted a free screening of the documentary, Albatross. The film is really powerful and most of the audience stuck around for an impromptu discussion afterwards!

Join us for an evening at the historic Broadway Theatre in Saskatoon as we watch a beautiful, thought provoking film ALBATROSS. This film screening is brought to you by Ocean Bridge & Ocean Wise. The cohorts of Ocean Bridge YXE will be introducing the film at 7 pm with a short preview of Ocean Bridge and our ocean conservation efforts in Haida Gwaii and our home town of Saskatoon. 

This film screening is FREE to all, but donations are welcome. 

The film starts at 7:00 pm on September 12th, 2018. You do not want to be late for any of this film, so please come early and grab a seat!

Trailer:  https://vimeo.com/218502282 

During the weekend of April 14th & 15th, 2018 I gathered a couple of friends and shovelled the residue of the ice from our annual carnival's Dog Races.

I took my Pathifnder meeting outside last week for a nice walk and cleanup around a lake that is located at a park in our area. We were pleased to report that there was very little garbage!

I got together with a team of Starbucks employees who want healthier, cleaner shorelines and we cleaned up a huge amount! It was one family and women my age, we all bonded over the hard work and crazy items we found and it was amazing how much litter we could collect here in the city! :)

Micah Messent and Matt Miller attended the Ban the Bag event on behalf of Ocean Bridge. They met MEC representatives and the event was hosted by Surfriders Vancouver Island. 

Jordan presented alongside the One More Generation youth at the Canadian Museum of Nature. There were 89 people in attendance! 

On #NationaCleanupDay the CBU Environmental Society gathered to promote cleaner coastal areas in our community. We held a cleanup open to the public at Big Glace Bay Beach and successfully removed 330 lbs from the shoreline with the help of Cape Breton University students, professors, and community members. 

Gave a short presentation on the Ocean Bridge Program to a group of Guiders on June 10th. Discussed our expedition to Haida Gwaii, our service while we were there, some of the local projects I am doing, and the future of the program. :)

Did my first snorkel cleanup at Colchester beach.  The good thing is I only found one piece of garbage on the lake floor and that was a Frisbee that was under the sand. The rest of the stuff on the shore was all plastic from the people at the beach not properly disposing of their garbage.

At the Healthy Living Fair I presented a project like presentation on how Fort McPherson is connected to the Ocean through our waterways. With a short study being shown on how the whitefish research project I'm connected with, gave us information through studies of how the whitefish we catch in McPherson, over 20% of the fish captured have lived in the Arctic Ocean in their lifetime. I touched base on plastics, and how in our lifetime they are just going to exist (sometimes longer than we are) and is going to create so much garbage that using more recyclable products like steel water bottles is a way better alternative. Also featured was a quick talk on what Ocean Bridge is and live screening - through my laptop - of Albratross. *balloons were given as a gift, sorry team!*

This Saturday was the Thames River Clean-Up which is a massive clean up that starts in Innerkip and ends near Windsor. I (bottom right) starting working hard at 11 am until 3 pm picking up mostly plastic from the river and wetlands. As you can see we got lots of tires and other items that don't belong in the river.

http://www.thamesrivercleanup.ca/

I have been promoting ocean, water, wildlife awareness through my instagram account : aquaclean1! I post initiatives sent by my team (11 members) 2-3 times a week in order to influence my comunity to reduce their waste! :) 

Spent the day cleaning up Dominion Beach alongside fellow Parks Canada Staff, ACAP Cape Breton, and The Cape Breton University Road Squad to restore this busy beach to its natural state.

Hosted a fun and fabulous Earth Day meeting with my Pathfinders where they completed challenges and learned about being environmentally conscious and overall became more aware of the world around them. These five teenagers are inspirational and were so engaged in the project (it was amazing they never even looked at their cellphones once!) and thoroughly enjoyed doing experiments, playing games and discussing human consumerism. Had such a proud Guider moment :)

Earth Day event at the Medicine Hat public library, started with a talk about the importance of conservation and youth involvement to screening film "400 PPM"by Maya Burhanpurkar.

April 22nd is Earth Day! Let's take a couple hours out of our day to pay respect to the land by picking up trash and litter that has resurfaced after the spring melt. From 10 AM - 12 PM, we'll be collecting litter in Whittier Park, along the Red River shoreline.

EDIT: We collected 29 bags of trash (most of it from a music festival that goes on in the winter - yikes)!

3-4 times a month I'll be taking with me a group of helpers (2-4ppl) to assist me with the upkeep of the Douglas Marsh IBA. Tasks at the marsh will include garbage pickup, taking note of and damage done to the marsh and also identifying/ counting different species of birds.

Lake Superior National Marine Conservation Area is excited to introduce the #WeLoveSuperior Speaker Series – a monthly event hosted by expert speakers highlighting the cultural, scientific and historical background of the North Shore and its connection with Lake Superior.

On Wednesday night Mark Pummala, resident geologist spoke about how Lake Superior is part of an intercontinental rift and its islands are formed from volcanic rock.

My first service activity in Vancouver since our Haida Gwaii trip was a great success at cleaning up the rocky shores along False Creek to protect the local marine life! Amy and Valerie here were very interested to hear about my Haida Gwaii cleanup experiences and we had wonderful discussions on how to live more sustainably! Many people walking along the seawall also asked about the work we were doing and thanked us for it! It was terrific fun on a sunny day and a great way to connect with other ocean loving people on important issues! :)

Bradly engaged his colleagues in a local cleanup. 

It's April 20 and the ice is still on the South Saskatchewan River, but the sun was beautiful while I helped clean up the riverbank this morning. The most common items I found were industrial plastic, cigarette butts, Styrofoam pieces, and paper cups. None of these things belong in our river!

Ocean Bridge member Matt Miller participated in Surfrider Vancouver Island’s Gorge beach cleanup event on July 8, 2018. Over 50 volunteers attended, pulling 1000 lbs of trash from the beaches there!

The Ocean Bridge Community Engagement Team hosted a fun-filled event for youth at Hiellen Longhouses on May 21st where we had a lovel

y BBQ, an interactive art project on Ocean Awareness, nature walks, and even a clam digging session!  This was a great opportunity to meet some locals and learn more about indigenous cultures in the Pacific Northwest. To finish off the day, youth from the Bella Bella Boys and Girls Club shared their voices with us as they performed traditional songs and shared their stories.

Between meetings, planning, calls, and the event itself Ocean Bridge Community team members contributed about 20 hours each to make this event a possibility.

Did a beach cleanup at the Hamilton beach with a few friends in collaboration with Keep Hamilton Clean and Green. We collected over 50 lbs of trash in approximately 3 hours, most of which was micro plastics. The data was recorded and sent to the City of Hamilton, as well as the Great Canadian Shoreline Cleanup. 

A small but successful beach cleanup. The main purpose of this trip was to identify good cleanup locations for later events but we of course had to do a little pickup of our own! The most common debris we found was Big 8 water bottle wrappers (switch to reusable water bottles!). There was also tons of rope tangled up with driftwood and buried under the sand/rocks.

A small group and I returned to Huntington Point to do some more cleaning up! We collected 31 lbs of small marine debris bits in one and a half hours. The most common items found were small elastics and lobster trap escape vents.

Last Huntington Point shoreline cleanup of the year! 15 of us removed 253 lbs of marine debris from the beach in 3 hours.

On April 6th, 2019 - myself and 22 volunteers cleaned up over 90kg of trash from the ice road. We went just in the nick of time - only 4 days later, the ice road was officially closed for the season.

YXE's Ocean Bridge cohort members Sam Matheson and Leah Luciuk hosted a free screening of Into the Gyre, followed by a discussion forum. 

Into the Gyre (2012) is a 44-minute documentary about a groundbreaking expedition to study the location, extent and effect of plastic pollution in the North Atlantic Gyre. Thirty-four volunteer researchers, scientists and sailors participated in this five-week expedition to the Sargasso Sea, east of Bermuda. Sailing on the 135-tall ship

This cleanup event was hosted by Ocean Blu and the Great Canadian Shoreline Cleanup and a team of 20-30 people of all ages helped gather a fair amount of litter from this well known Vancouver beach! We found a Christmas ornament that fell into Jericho pond only to see the still decorated Christmas tree standing behind us like "oh, that's where that came from" even though it is April! As well as hundreds of tiny pieces of confetti and an old abandoned campsite complete with a VERY mouldy pillow and a sleeping mat that had hatches of spider eggs within it (which was terrifying) but it was super fun and it feels so amazing to be directing helping our shores!

Shoreline clean up in partnership with WWF Canada.

Pendant notre séjour en Haïda Gwaii, nous avons pris des vidéos et des photos partout. Nous faisions des entrevues avec les autres participants de Portail Océan ainsi qu'avec toutes les personnes disposées à parler qui ont croisé notre chemin. Le but était la collection des histoires. En rentrant, nous voulions :

• Faire un documentaire ou un journal vidéo (un vlogue)
• Donner une exposition d’art dans un milieu public suivant le style de « Humans of New York » où nous partageons des photos avec une petite histoire liée à l’océan en français, en anglais et en haïda dans nos villes, selon la réglementation municipale
• Envoyer une exposition d’art au Haida Heritage Centre pour qu’ils utilisent comme ils veulent

Partnering with Let’s Talk Science, Ocean Bridge youth Matt Miller led a hands on microplastic workshop with four groups of grade sixes from different schools around Victoria. The students got to use a scientific method of extracting microplastics from real beach sand from Victoria beaches, and then look at them under the microscope. The students were very engaged and excited to use the microscopes. Many of them were shocked to learn just how much plastic is on beaches and in the ocean.

Throughout 8 weeks of summer, myself and my coworker engaged our summer camp kids in ocean and water conservation activities. Approximately one activity was done per week which lasted roughly an hour, and the activities were repeated each week with new camp kids.

Some of the activities we really enjoyed were the oil-spill scenario and the ocean zones in mason jars. Once the activity was over, we had a short discussion about conservation and the importance of the activity. 

On August 5th, I volunteered to give a talk at my workplace about the impacts of plastic pollution on wildlife. I held two interactive theatre shows, where I showed pictures and data from our Haida Gwaii beach cleanup, a box turtle, tree frog, and caiman to touch and hold, as well as reusable alternatives to plastic. At the end of the shows, I handed out free metal straws to the public. 

"LEARN MORE ABOUT YOUR GLOBAL FOOTPRINT AND HOW YOU CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE!

This past month, our team at Little Ray’s Hamilton participated in the Plastic Free July challenge, a global initiative aimed at making people more aware of their use single-use plastics and global footprint. 

We want to share what we have learned from the challenge with you! Visit us this Sunday, August 5th from 12-3pm to learn more about the impacts of plastic pollution on animals and what you can do to help!

Join Stephanie, Wildlife Educator and member of the national ocean conservation program Ocean Bridge, to learn more about alternatives to single-use plastics as well as how plastic pollution impacts some of our zoo animals. These special presentations will be at 12-12:30, 1-1:30, and 2-2:30.

SAVE ON ADMISSION! Regular admission is $14.50 per person, but if you bring a reusable water bottle with you on Sunday and show us at the front desk everyone in your group will get in for only $12.50 per person!"

Hello Friends! It is happening! London's first Zero Waste meetup + DIY Workshop!

Please join us at The Pickle Social Club in lovely Old East Village on April 27^th, 2018 for a wonderful evening of sharing, connecting and learning, hosted by Zero Waste Forest City. This meetup will bring together folks from London and beyond who are interested in connecting to like-minded people and learning more about living in respectful harmony with the environment. This gathering is for anyone who is curious about Zero Waste, looking to make changes to their lifestyle to create less trash, and for those already working towards a low waste lifestyle. We will be sharing tips and tricks to make your green choices easier. Whether you are just starting out or have been at it for years, anyone and everyone is welcome! We encourage everyone to bring experience, questions and resources to share :)

PLUS

We will be running a DIY workshop to make your choice of two Earth-friendly, plastic-free home products! We will be offering natural deodorant or all purpose cleaning paste!

For more information + tickets: http://buytickets.at/zerowasteforestcity/157889

This event is geared towards anyone under 30 who is interested in the environment. Enjoy an evening of casual conversations, coffee and other beverages, plus inspiring ideas for action. Come down and make new friends, develop ideas, and learn about other volunteer opportunities. 

The Marine Debris Cleanup Team planned and organized two successful shoreline cleanups on Haida Gwaii! Leading up to the expedition each team member spent an average of 4.5 hours planning the cleanups.

Our first cleanup took the Ocean Bridge team to the remote T’aalan Stl’ang/Lepas Bay, in the north-western corner Haida Gwaii. Just reaching the site took many hours of travelling by bus and boat, followed by a half hour hike. Remote locations like this are difficult to access but no less important to cleanup. Unfortunately, out of sight often equates out of mind and not everyone has the opportunity or resources to travel these distances. A beach not easily accessed for regular cleanups and a natural catchment point for marine debris, T’aalan Stl’ang has collected a sobering amount of trash. We were taken aback by the amount and types of marine debris, everything from microplastics to fishing gear to personal items like shoes and toothbrushes. However, the cleanup was a success, and got us even more motivated for the next one. Thank you to Danny and Marine Highlander Services, who made this day possible!

The second cleanup took place at Gaatsguusd/North Beach, right on the doorstep of our cabin accommodation in Haida Gwaii. We spread the team out over almost all of the ~20 km long beach and collected marine debris data for the Citizen Science Team while cleaning up the shoreline. By the end of the day all the debris we collected filled up an industrial dumpster. Big shout out to Lucy and Chris from BC Parks, who were a huge help with this cleanup!

In total we spent 5 hours cleaning up the two shorelines and collected around 2200 lbs of marine debris!

During MEC’s hugely successful Paddlefest event in Victoria, I volunteered at the Surfrider booth to educate the public about ocean plastic pollution and what they can do to help the problem. I was unexpectedly voluntold to hop on a paddleboard for a fundraiser relay race to raise money for breast cancer, and had a blast!

“Sonic Sea" film screening  taking place Weds., Sept. 19 at Patagonia Halifax. This screening is hosted by Ocean Bridge/OceanWise with the support of Patagonia Halifax, Ocean Tracking Network, Oceans Week HFX and possibly more to be confirmed depending on a small panel discussion. 

Operation Minerva is a program created by Praxis that encourages girls in grade 9 to pursue careers in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math). A full that event that introduces young girls to the diversity of science through lectures and hands on workshops. I was their closing speaker, I spoke about conservation biology and the different types of science fields that you come across in sustainability/environmentalism.

Jordan organized a local cleanup in eastern Ottawa with friends and collected a surprising amount of debris! Data to come. 

A team of my classmates and I went out to the MacSkimming Outdoor Education Centre for the day and planted over 100 Butternut trees and transported a tonne of sand to create two local nesting sites for the local turtles!

During the month of July, I advocated for my workplace to join Calgary Zoo & Columbus Zoo and Aquarium's Plastic Free July event, a global initiative to raise awareness about single-use plastics and to reduce your own footprint. 

Myself, as well as 11 of my coworkers and the camp kids engaged in daily challenges. Here were our recorded impacts:

My second plastic pollution poster. This one suggests various ways to reduce plastic use when choosing and using toiletries! Feel free to share :)

Had a successful cleanup at the Port Morien Sandbar on Wednesday, May 16th! We gathered almost 300kgs of garbage which included an assortment of tires, fishing gear, plastics, and even diapers (ew). We had a great turnout of Girl Guides, Guiders, parents, and community members who were eager to help transform the beach and get it ready for the busy summer season. It was so sad seeing so much garbage in a place that is so close to me but it was refreshing and satisfying seeing the results after a few hours of cleaning. Can't wait to host another one soon!

Stay tuned for the AquaBlog post!

Prairie Wind Music festival is annually held in Cypress River Manitoba on the first weekend of June of the Friday night, Saturday and Sunday. The festival has been growing ever since it began in the summer of 2012 and will hopefully continue to do so. I personally volunteer on the steering committee as the assistant volunteer coordinator and this year we will be hosting a variety of environment related workshops including: Critter dipping, gardening, and tree planting.

Matt worked the Surfrider booth at Rock the Shores music festival over the weekend, educating attendees about ocean plastic and zero-waste living. By the end of the festival people were coming up to the booth asking if we had any reusable straws left!

Drove out to Maymont, SK to help the NCC (Nature Conservancy of Canada) clean up a new conservation area they recently acquired. The day involved cleaning up any litter on the property and taking down an old CN railway fence. We filled three truck beds full of page and barb wire fencing, the volunteer work attributed roughly equals out to a $1668.00 value! These efforts helped to make this property a safer place for the wildlife that call it home. *Special note while taking down fences we were lucky enough to spot a Northen Leopard Frog! Yay! 

Sam M. and I had the opportunity to collaborate with Partners FOR the Saskatchewan River Basin and Girl Guides of Canada. PFSRB gave an interactive presentation that taught the group of Girl Guides about our watershed, things that have affected the watershed's health, and some actions we can each take to improve the overall quality of our river. The girls had fun learning about local issues! Sam and I then got to share our own Ocean Bridge stories and invite the group to join us on a riverbank cleanup in the near future.

Stay tuned for more details about an upcoming cleanup in Saskatoon, SK!

Went to Sauble Falls where people would jump off found lost of glasses. Found some Gucci glasses

Fantastic day cleaning Scots Bay beach and making connections in the community. Over the span of three hours approximately 35 participants (including a couple from Spain travelling North America by van - https://www.verdepordentro.com...) collected ~341 lbs of marine debris! Some of the findings included 384 lobster/crab claw elastics, 107 bottle caps, and 85 plastic bags.

I helped out at the Wednesday night Wolfville farmer's market community supper, running a sea creature craft table. It was fun to spend time getting creative with the kids and talking about our favourite marine animals. Jellyfish were quite popular that evening!

I hosted a free screening of the documentary Sonic Sea at the Al Whittle Theatre in Wolfville! Lots of audience members stuck around afterwards to chat about the documentary and sound pollution in the ocean.

A beach clean up along a small beach just outside of St. John’s, Newfoundland. Participants braved the wind, waves and cold, and  removed 12 bags of litter from the beach, wharves, and roadside.

Shoreline Wars on "May the 4th be with you" was a huge success, we collected 500 cigarette butts off the Stanley Park Seawall, as well as large pieces of cardboard and so many beers cans! It was super fun, as it always is, getting together and working towards clean shores!

A 2016 study found that 22 million tons of plastic enters the Great Lakes each year. If current trends continue, by 2050 there will be more plastic in the world’s oceans (by weight) than fish. We each have a choice about what we purchase and how it is packaged. A movement is growing in London of individuals and organizations who are choosing to drastically reduce their own use of packaging and to raise awareness of the positive impact that living a zero waste lifestyle can have. Living package-free seems daunting, and sometimes it’s not easy - some food is hard to find without packaging! In this workshop we will share the stories of own journeys to living package free. Our focus will be on practical solutions to help participants to make shifts - however small - in their own purchasing practices. We will also speak about how plastics negatively affect the health of our waterways, aquatic wildlife and the humans that live near them. What do I say if a store refuses to sell me something in my own container? Which stores are most friendly to a package free lifestyle? What items are hard to find without packaging, and where can I find them? How can I save packaging (and money!) by making certain things at home instead of buying them packaged? How is wildlife impacted by my packaging choices? All these questions and more will be covered during the workshop.

Ocean Bridger Matt Miller was invited to attend the 2018 Sustainable Brands Conference in Vancouver to participate in a youth workshop on ocean plastic pollution. The workshop was ran by Proctor and Gamble, and was aimed to come up with challenges for industry to reduce their use of plastic and reduce ocean plastic pollution. After working together, and with industry, the youth presented their challenges to the industry members. Proctor and Gamble has since committed to making all their packaging recyclable, and to use ocean plastic to produce bottles for certain products.

Discussed what Ocean Bridge is and the expedition to Haida Gwaii, showed pictures of the places we visited and the activities that we did over the 10 days. Ended with a discussion about Plastic Pollution and our role. 

BC Premier John Horgan stopped by the Surfrider booth to say hi to Ocean Bridge member (and UVic Surfrider student club Vice-President) Matt Miller during the Victoria Pride Festival! Premier Horgan is a long-time supporter and member of Surfrider Vancouver Island. Matt was there as part of his weekly service engaging the public about ocean plastic pollution and recruiting volunteers for their monthly beach cleanups!

Travelling around makes it a bit tricky to engage your local community, but there are still tons of ways to help the ocean! I created this poster suggesting a couple easy ways individuals can cut down on their plastic use, thereby lessening the amount of plastic in our waters.

Cypress River, Manitoba is home to a beautiful marshland, but there was something missing. With help from local community members, friends and generous funders, Taylor Jones-Arason's vision of a new observation deck to allow locals to enjoy their hometown waterway came to life in late 2018. The municipality is also considering using the space to stage future music and culture events. This project is one that will help locals connect with their local waterway, and will be enjoyed by countless people for generations to come

I snagged a booth at the weekly Wolfville Farmers Market to advertise my upcoming shoreline cleanups, movie screenings, and art contest, talk about ocean bridge, and share tips on reducing plastic use! Lots of great chats with market-goers of all ages.  Check out the newspaper article here - https://www.kingscountynews.ca...

Hosted by the Shaw Centre for the Salish Sea, this early World Ocean Day event had booths from many different organizations and focused on engaging and educating children about ocean-related issues. Matt worked the Surfrider booth with three fellow UVic Surfrider student club members, educating people about ocean plastic pollution and ways we can reduce our plastic use!

Join one of Ocean Bridge's Saskatchewan representatives, Leah Luciuk, at Beaver Creek Conservation Area on September 23, 2018 from 12PM-5PM to celebrate World Rivers Day. Join experts from Partners FOR the Saskatchewan River Basin, South Saskatchewan River Watershed Stewards, Meewasin Valley Authority, Beaver Creek Conservation Area, City of Saskatoon, and more for a fun day of activities and learning! 

For more info, please visit http://www.saskriverbasin.ca/e.... 

My colleagues and I from the Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries Student Society got together to cleanup Wreck Beach at UBC! We picked up 1,000 cigarette butts even though smoking is banned on all Vancouver parks and beaches as of 2010, it remains a problem. We had to carry this heavy tarp up the long stairs of Wreck Beach but it was well worth the dirt and exercise to know it is now cleaner. We're making a difference where we live and research the ocean, doing on the ground work to match our high level data analyses. :)