Blog

We are so grateful to everyone who donated in 2021 to support our important work of educating and inspiring the next generation of environmental stewards. With your support we taught over 30,000 children in classrooms, on field trips, and in school gardens throughout Santa Barbara County. We [...]

Eco Friendly Gift Wrapping You’d be surprised how easy it can be to replace wrapping paper with more eco-friendly options. Giving gifts wrapped with care is a delight. Instead of buying new wrapping paper that will end up in the landfill, use a produce bag, tea towel, bandanna, newspaper, sheet [...]

Thanksgiving marks the beginning of the holiday season here in the US. Unfortunately, it also marks a drastic increase in food and packaging waste. Did you know that between Thanksgiving and the New Year, Americans throw away 25% more trash? This extra waste equals about 25 million tons of [...]

Halloween is one of our favorite holidays at Art From Scrap. But, we aren’t a fan of the extra waste that occurs when this spooky celebration is over. We want to share with you some of our favorite and fun ways to have a more eco-friendly Halloween. Costumes: This year, the average consumer is [...]

This year’s Santa Barbara County Coastal Cleanup Day presented us with the opportunity to band together to clean up our shorelines for the first time in over a year since the pandemic. The three-hour cleanup, with sites all along Santa Barbara county’s coast, yielded over 6,000 pounds of trash. [...]

Thank you, Santa Barbara. This year, you really cleaned up! Over 1,287 volunteers showed up for Coastal Cleanup Day on Saturday, September 18th at 28 sites throughout the County. You picked up over 5,211 pounds of trash and over 892 pounds of recyclables for a total of 6,104 pounds- just over 3 [...]

Show the beach and your neighborhood some love! Join Explore Ecology for Friday Cleanups  throughout Santa Barbara County in April through June. Kick off your weekend, enjoy the sunshine, and be part of the solution to ocean pollution by picking up litter before it becomes marine debris. Ten [...]

At Explore Ecology we like to empower and educate our community about how their everyday choices impact the environment. Join us in celebrating Earth Day this year by making simple changes in your lifestyle, changes that will make the world a better place for all.         [...]

  Art From Scrap, Santa Barbara’s favorite creative reuse store, is re-opening just in time for Earth Day. The Creative Reuse Store located at 302 East Cota Street in downtown Santa Barbara will re-open on Wednesday, April 21st at 11:00 am. The new Store Hours are Wednesday through [...]

At Explore Ecology, we get to work with so many amazing people. We figured it’s about time for you to meet our team and to hear some of their stories. 💕⁠ Lydia Ballantine is an Environmental Educator and the Watershed Resource Center Manager. Lydia grew up in rural New Hampshire, swimming [...]