Heal the Bay is a great example of how just one person can make an incredible difference. Back in 1985, Dorothy Green decided to organize concerned Angelenos and end the dumping of incompletely treated sewage into the Bay. Now, we are close to 15,000 members strong, and have made an incredible difference in the quality of our coast, ocean, and waterways.

You don’t have to be a Dorothy Green to make a huge difference, though. Simply carrying your own bag to the grocery store means that many fewer plastic bags floating in our ocean and potentially harming or killing marine life. Stopping trash from making its way to our beaches means that much less trash in the ocean. Talking to your friends and neighbors about environmental issues means that many more people acting in an environmentally responsible way, and hopefully spreading the word to their own friends and family as well. And using water responsibly means that much more water to go around.

You, personally, can make a huge difference. And it’s not even that hard to do.

10 Ways to Heal the Bay Even if you live miles from the beach, there are many ways that you can help. Check out these top 10 suggestions and start healing the Bay today!

Storm Drains Everything that is on the streets of your city has the potential to end up at the beach. Most of Los Angeles is covered with impermeable surfaces like parking lots, streets, and buildings. What happens when water hits an impermeable surface? Instead of infiltrating into the ground, water runs off the street, down the gutter and into the storm drain system.

Save Water Water is everywhere. It makes up most of the earth’s surface, and it even makes up most of the human body. We couldn’t survive without water—and the earth couldn’t either.

Poisons at Home Household Hazardous Waste (HHW) is any product in your home or garage with a warning label that says the product is flammable, corrosive, poisonous, or an irritant. This includes paint and paint thinners, nail polish/remover, household cleaners and disinfectants, fertilizers, hair dyes, pool chemicals and batteries. When these items are improperly disposed of, they pollute our environment and threaten our health.

The 3R's We’ve all heard the phrase “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle”. What you might not know is that they’re listed in order of priority. Reduce what you use first, reuse it if you have to buy it, and recycle it if you absolutely can’t reuse it.

Soak It In Most of Los Angeles is covered with impermeable surfaces like parking lots, streets, and buildings. What happens when water hits an impermeable surface? Instead of infiltrating into the ground where it replenishes the ground water, it runs off the street, along the gutter and into the storm drain system.

Think Big Technology can come to the rescue. There are lot of great projects and legislation in the works beginning to have a big impact on water quality in Southern California. It’s important to remember that technology can be, very expensive and requires a long term commitment. Technology can help but it can’t do it alone. In conjunction with well-thought out environmental protections and laws, well placed hi-tech solutions can bring us closer and closer to a swimmable and fishable bay 365 days a year.

Report Pollution If you see a local company or a neighbor polluting your neighborhood or storm drain, call the appropriate official. We all deserve to live in a clean and healthy environment, and it’s your city or county’s responsibility to help keep it that way

Support Us! Here are several ways that you can help Heal the Bay continue its work for clean and safe coastal waters and watersheds...