The students took collective action to request a ban on polystyrene food trays after they learned during a class trip to a Los Angeles recycling center that food contaminated polystyrene does not get recycled; instead it goes straight to the dump.

We don't live in a snow globe, the environment is not a toy, and there is nothing innocent or pristine about the scene that is going to be played out in Sacramento in the next few weeks. We live in the real world, a world facing serious environmental threats from plastic pollution.

The hope in roping off sections of plover habitat in Malibu Lagoon is that we will be able to share the beach with our feathered friends and that the plovers will nest and reproduce.