May/June Beach Cleanup Stats

Aloha mai kakou,

Many thanks to the 83 people who helped us cleanup both the Manuka NARs last month (on May 14th) and Kamilo Point this past Saturday (on June 4th). Many hands indeed make light work!

During these two events, we were able to collect and remove over 5,405 lbs of marine debris from along the Ka’u and South Kona shoreline. Specific cleanup details and some photographs are included here below.

FYI, details on upcoming beach cleanup events are at the bottom.

MANUKA – May 14th, 2011
35 participants (including one from Manoa Valley, O’ahu)
1/2 mile of coastline
20 trashbags

700 lbs of non-net marine debris removed

From datasheets: 15,225 pieces were collected and removed. Mostly plastics (75%) and metal (17%), followed by cloth (7%), glass (3%) rubber (2%), and wood (<1%).

Interesting finds: A night heron carcus, dead eel, loads of DLNR metal tags, a wetsuit, swimsuit, sarong and more. Most of the plastic collected was super brittle (compared to any other cleanup site), plus there were lots of camper "dump piles" of degrading aluminum cans, used batteries and busted glass.

A special thanks to the Manuka Natural Area Reserve Staff for helping us organize the May cleanup event!

KAMILO – June 4th, 2011
48 participants (including one from San Diego, CA)
1/2 mile of coastline
103 trashbags
3705 lbs of non-net marine debris removed
1000 lbs of derelict fishing nets removed

Composition: As usual, most ALL (~95%) of the debris removed from Kamilo Point was plastic. Of the 103 trashbags collected, at least two of them were full of tiny microplastic "confetti" that was sorted from beach sand. The fact that we are now able to spend time on the little stuff is a very good thing!

Interesting finds: 5-gallon bucket lid with barnacles, old Japanese liquor bottles with characters, 3-legged rhinosaurus toy, various army men toys, several fishing vessel tags***, etc.

*** As an aside, over the past couple years we have found vessel tags from 503 (Portland, OR) twice, and 360 (Seattle, WA), 650 (Bay Area, CA), and 707 (Northern CA) once each.

A handful of the cleanup photos that I took can be seen online here: https://picasaweb.google.com/kahakai.cleanups/June4thKamiloCleanup?authkey=Gv1sRgCJ_KncGKudvWogE&feat=directlink; however, I will soon upload more to our facebook page which is a much quicker process.

Mahalo to Dr. Drew Kapp for bringing your students from UHH/HCC and to Lindsay Englund for bringing a vanload of students from Waiakea High School to this June 4th cleanup!

Upcoming cleanups include:

Sunday, June 19th – 2pm at Hilo Bayfront, bring your own 5-gal bucket. This event is co-coordinated with the new Surfrider chapter in Hilo just in time for International Surfing Day. Potluck BBQ to follow or precede cleanup. For more info, please email Jesse (Surfrider Hilo Founder, <jesseelainehughes>) and cc me too, mahalo.

Saturday, Sept 17th – 7:45am Ka’u Community Beach Cleanup (meet at Wai’ohinu Park) – cleanup location to be determined closer to this 26th Annual International Coastal Cleanup event. For this cleanup, we are hoping to have burlap bags to collect rubbish inside and be rid of our large plastic trashbags. Please RSVP if you need a ride. As usual, 4wd’s needed for this cleanup.

Cheers and malama pono,
Megan

********************************************************
Megan R. McWhite Lamson
HWF Debris Project Coordinator
kahakai.cleanups
cell 808.769.7629 – fax 877.885.8031

Please consider the planet before printing this email.