Our Volunteers
Join our BlueTube volunteers! Add your clean, used bags to the BlueTube at your favorite beach. Sponsor a BlueTube there if there isn’t one already. Tell other beach-goers how BlueTube makes it easy to keep beaches clean and keep plastic out of the ocean. Report any maintenance issues. Be part of the solution!
Our Company
BlueTube, Inc. is a small company with a big mission: clean beaches and plastic-free oceans. With a little effort from a lot of people in many places all the time we can solve these problems. Our product, BlueTube, makes it easy. BlueTubes are bright blue, easy-to-spot containers that hold clean, used plastic bags. They are installed at beach crossovers so people can grab a bag on their way to the beach, pick up trash and throw it away. Beach-goers donate their clean, used plastic bags to the container, and the cycle continues. Sponsor a BlueTube on your shore for $160, tax deductible.
People clean beaches, BlueTubes just help, so we work hard on public outreach. Besides this informative website, we post on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, send out a monthly email newsletter called Trash Talk, speak to civic groups and students about plastic in the ocean and bring the BlueTube tent to events.
Part of the proceeds from each sponsorship goes to Sea Education Association (SEA) out of Woods Hole, Massachusetts for research on plastic in the oceans. SEA has been collecting data on ocean plastic since 1986. SEA students and scientists tow nets along the surface in the Atlantic Ocean, Pacific Ocean and Caribbean Sea from their two research ships. Each piece of plastic debris from thousands of tows is counted and preserved, and this data is used for further studies. SEA scientists publish on a variety of plastic-related topics including microbial communities on plastic, the effects of wind on vertical distribution of plastic in the ocean, organic pollutants on plastic debris, plastic accumulation in the oceans and the source of ocean plastic.
BlueTube, Inc. is a 501(c)3 company based in Melbourne, Florida.
Our Founder
Patty Goffinet, BlueTube founder, picks up trash on her frequent trips to the beach. She would often forget to bring a bag, and picking up trash without a bag is not very efficient. Patty figured there were other forgetful beach lovers out there and came up with the idea of BlueTube. BlueTubes hold clean, used bags and provide a reminder too. They make it easy for all of us to leave the beach cleaner than we find it and put a dent in the plastic floating around in our oceans.
In 2012, Patty took part in Sea Education Association’s expedition to the North Pacific Gyre to study the accumulation of ocean plastic. She joined a crew of 37 others aboard the SSV Robert C. Seamans. They sailed 2600 miles from San Diego to Honolulu, deploying plankton nets and tallying almost 70,000 pieces of plastic along the way. A portion of each BlueTube sponsorship goes to the Sea Education Association to continue their research on ocean plastic.
Patty has a bachelors degree from Rollins College in Environmental Studies and Biology. She earned a masters degree in Marine, Estuarine and Environmental Science from the University of Maryland. She loves all things marine. She is also passionate about getting kids outside. Children, she believes, need the outdoors like fish need water. She is author of Go Outside and Play: Why Kids Don’t and Why They Should.
VP Marketing and Technology
Marlis Humphrey joined BlueTube to help stop plastic pollution. Sensitive to the cause of clean beaches after several years of volunteering at the local environmental learning center and being a key organizer of BeachAid 2010, Marlis brings experience in growth leadership of non-profit organizations as well as from the commercial sector. She has held senior marketing and technology positions in Harris Corporation, Lucent, AT&T Paradyne, and AT&T Bell Labs and founded Vitreous Communications, Inc. and myAncestories. Marlis earned a B.A. in Russian Language from Knox College and a M.S. in Management of Technology from the University of Miami.
Social Media Coordinator
Sierra Harnett is our social media intern. She tweets. She instagrams. She is the face behind our Facebook. Sierra is a senior at North Carolina State University majoring in Communications.
Treasurer
Tom Goffinet is the BlueTube numbers man. He sends out invoices, pays bills, keeps books. Tom has a bachelors degree in history, a master’s in international studies and works as an aquatic scientist.