This Garbage Dump We Call Earth

Kirsty and I spent a day with the Hawaiian Wildlife Fund group cleaning up the beach at Kamilo Point. Once considered the dirtiest beach in the world, HWF has since remedied that sorry fact by getting groups of volunteers to clean up the beach.

From the HWF website:

The mega-gyre of floating plastic estimated to be larger than the state of Texas is pouring a steady stream of marine debris on certain beaches of Hawai’i. At South Point (Ka Lae) of Hawai’i Island (Big Island), HWF has cleaned more than 100 tons of marine debris from these remote beaches during the last four years. This coastline is visited by endangered Hawaiian monk seals,humpback whales,and nested on by the endangered hawksbill turtle.

HWF organized the first community shoreline cleanups here in 2003 and the effort has been continuous since. Over the past year, HWF has helped to remove more than 12 tons of marine debris from this nine-mile stretch of coastline.

The big problem is that the debris keeps coming ashore at a rate we’ve estimated to be 15-20 tons per year. Most of the large bundles of net, many weighing well over 1,000 pounds, are removed with special equipment we’ve built, and HWF works with Matson to ship the net and line to Honolulu where it is used to generate electricity in a trash-to-energy conversion plant (H-Power). HWF takes all of the other trash, including the 2,000+ bags of small plastic items collected to date, to the county for burial in a landfill.

Here are pictures from our trip:

 After an hour and a half trip down a kidney-jarring "road" we arrived at Ka' Alu' Alu Bay. The vehicles that couldn't continue were parked here, as the road got rougher for the last 1/2 mile or so. We decided to walk to see if our kidneys could find where they were supposed to sit. We were in the largest truck with Bill, the head of the HWF. He drives a Chevrolet 2500 pickup that is jacked up about three feet and strengthened with everything Chevy has to make it bad-ass for off road. He was also towing an ATV in the back of a US Army trailer. Bill said he has gone through 3 trucks in the last 10 years!

 That is Bill's truck to the left as it heads to the beach site. Kirsty is walking along the road, picking up garbage left behind by inconsiderate surfers and campers who don't respect the land.

The beach, back when HWF started to clean it up.

 The clean beach today.

 Lots and lots of nets entangled in the shrubs and buried in the sand.

 Our pile so far. It is sad to think that one is doing a good job getting this junk off the beach, then you look closely and see that this beach has millions and millions of pieces of tiny plastic pieces mixed in with the sand. On the other hand, the plastic and other debris we remove today won't continue to degrade. The wind, as usual, is very gusty!

 This is a picture from the HWF website showing the types of plastics we picked up.

Over 1,000 pounds of debris off this "clean" beach!

Peace my friends.