2024
RiverRecycle at EarthX
RiverRecycle brought its river cleanup and plastic recycling work to EarthX, and added the Tijuana River to the story. It was the start of the partnership behind the Tijuana River Project.
Marko Kärkkäinen
Tijuana River Project · Rotary Club of Newport Beach
Thank you to our EarthX presenters
Every April, EarthX in Dallas gives the Tijuana River a stage far from the border it flows across. Each year a group of scientists, entrepreneurs, advocates and Rotarians has paid their own way to Texas to tell that story and put real solutions in front of a national audience.
Thanks to you, the conversation moved from the problem to the plan: turning river plastic into building boards, building a tire recycling business on the border, restoring the river channel, and bringing young people into the fight. Two Rotary global grants grew out of those talks. On behalf of the Tijuana River Project, thank you.
Steve BenderPresident, Rotary Club of Newport Beach · Global Head of Strategic Partnerships, EarthX · Organizer, the Rotary Xperience at EarthX
On the EarthX stage
The Tijuana River sessions at EarthX, year by year.
2025
Tijuana River Cleanup Project panel
A cross-border panel moderated by Dave Rice laid out the river's environmental crisis, practical solutions on both sides of the border, and the organizations already doing the work. Topics ran from river plastics and the waste tire crisis to nature-based redesign of the concrete channel and youth stewardship.
Dave RiceMarko KärkkäinenFay CrevoshayRamon ChairezNathan White
2026
The Tijuana River Project
Presented by the Solana Beach Eco Rotary Club with RiverRecycle and WILDCOAST. Jenny Parker covered the history of the crisis, Marko showed how river plastic becomes building boards, and Fay explained the tire dumping problem WILDCOAST sees at its trash booms. A panel with Serge Dedina followed, and the session closed with the two Rotary global grants that will fund this work in 2026-27.
Jenny ParkerMarko KärkkäinenFay CrevoshaySerge Dedina
Our presenters
Seven people who carried the Tijuana River story to EarthX.
Marko Kärkkäinen, FRSA
Director of Corporate Social Responsibility, RiverRecycle (Finland)
Marko has been with us from the beginning, showing how RiverRecycle captures plastic from rivers and turns it into durable building boards.
Thank you for crossing an ocean three years running to help a river on our border.
202420252026
Fay Crevoshay
Communications and Policy Director, WILDCOAST / Costa Salvaje
Fay runs WILDCOAST's marine debris program at the border and made the waste tire crisis impossible to ignore, along with the plan for the first tire recycling business on the U.S.-Mexico border.
Thank you for bringing the view from the trash booms to the main stage.
20252026
Dave Rice
President, United Nations Association of Orange County · Founder, SIAS International
Dave built and moderated the 2025 Tijuana River Cleanup panel, and ran the weekly planning calls that pulled the team together.
Thank you for turning a group of strangers into a team.
2025
Ramon Chairez
Director of Education and Environmental Advocacy, Un Mar de Colores
Ramon spoke for the young people and families who live closest to the pollution, and for the ocean access and stewardship programs that give them a voice.
Thank you for keeping the community at the center of the conversation.
2025
Nathan White
CEO and Co-Founder, AGESS, Inc.
Nathan shared a vision for turning the concrete-lined channel back into a natural river system, with diversion ponds to manage polluted runoff.
Thank you for flying in to show what the river could become.
2025
Jenny Parker
Solana Beach Eco Rotary Club
Jenny led the 2026 Tijuana River Project session, presenting the history and scope of the crisis and steering the club's work on the two global grants.
Thank you for leading the Rotary side of this project.
2026
Serge Dedina
Co-founder and Executive Director, WILDCOAST / Costa Salvaje
Serge joined the 2026 panel and brought decades of binational conservation work and border pollution advocacy to the discussion.
Thank you for lending your voice and experience.
2026