A passing pedestrian caught employees of a well-known pottery place illegally dumping waste on camera.
CISCO (@psyskoh) posted a now-viral video to Instagram of Color Me Mine employees dumping ceramic glaze water down a storm drain that clearly reads "no dumping."
"'Who cares, it'll rain' you can hear a @colormemine employee [say], while they look to be training where to dump pottery glaze," Psyskoh wrote in the post's description. "On Main Street in Santa Monica CA. Infuriating."
Despite the very clear "No dumping, drains to ocean" sign in front of the drain, the video shows two employees dumping a bucket of green clay glaze water into the drain and street.
The video went viral, and Color Me Mine released an official statement on Facebook: "We at Color Me Mine want to give our deepest apologies … These actions caught on video not only are not standard procedure but also the first time in 15 years of ownership this has happened. The glaze in the video is non toxic, water based, and soluble. Mind you, this does not excuse it from being dumped in the storm drain. We are working with the city to pay for fines and the clean up process as well … the employees in the video have been reprimanded and the staff has gone under training on how to properly dispose of glaze."
Storm drains funnel directly to the nearest body of water, like streams, lakes, and oceans. To prevent pollution, dumping is illegal at these sites — even nontoxic liquids like glaze water. Pollutants in the water can affect water quality, harm fish and other wildlife, and disrupt ecosystems.
While this situation has since been addressed, it's certainly not the only instance of companies taking unsustainable shortcuts. A recent report revealed that Tyson Foods dumped nearly 400 million pounds of harmful pollutants into waterways.
Commenters were disappointed and upset by the employees' actions.
"It is very disappointing to see a local business misuse storm drains," one user said. "Storm drains connect directly to our oceans and should never be used for waste disposal of any kind."
"I work for a Hazardous waste disposal company … Ceramic glaze IS REGULATED," another said. "There are MAJOR EPA fines for this. Wow."
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