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New Program In Santa Barbara County Tries To Reduce Pollution In Ocean From Restaurants

It’s lunchtime at Carpinteria’s Rincon Brewery, and the place is buzzing with activity.

On a warm summer day, almost every table is filled with people munching on burgers and salads. With many people wearing t-shits, caps, shorts, and flip-flops, it feels like you are at the beach. It looks like an environmentally conscious crowd. But, what people here don’t realize is that this place part of a cutting edge new effort in Santa Barbara County to get restaurants to be more “ocean friendly.”

Morgan Visalli is a scientist with UC Santa Barbara’s Marine Science Institute. She’s also a volunteer with the Santa Barbara chapter of the Surfrider Foundation, which sponsors the Ocean Friendly Restaurants program.

The effort includes steps like restaurants voluntarily using paper takeaway bags instead of plastic ones, and asking people if they need disposable utensils instead of automatically putting them in takeout bags.

Carpinteria’s Rincon Brewery is one of the initial restaurants in the program. Even before joining the effort, it was doing some things to be more environmentally friendly. Rincon Brewery owner Mark Hyatt says they totally eliminated the use of straws months ago, and have taken a number of other measures.

The Ocean Friendly Restaurant program is already up and running in other areas like Los Angeles and San Diego. It officially kicks off Thursday, but Visalli says they already have more than a half dozen local businesses on board.

While some government jurisdictions are moving to take steps like banning straws, or limiting the use of plastic bags for takeaway food, this effort doesn’t rely on rules. It’s restaurants stepping up.

Lance Orozco has been News Director of KCLU since 2001, providing award-winning coverage of some of the biggest news events in the region, including the Thomas and Woolsey brush fires, the deadly Montecito debris flow, the Borderline Bar and Grill attack, and Ronald Reagan's funeral. 
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