Our first 2019 cleanup was a great success and we are so proud of all the community support! The event was held on Saturday March 2, 2019, with 97 volunteers and 6 Friends of Hanauma Bay members. The event was jointly hosted by the Friends of Hanauma Bay and the Kaiser High School Wipeout Crew, who also coached a group of Koko Head Elementary School students in marine debris and using sand sifters to collect micro plastics. In addition to those two schools, we had volunteers from the following organizations join the cleanup: US Navy, UH Manoa BEST (business school) and UH Manoa ASCE (civil engineering school), Hawaii Baptist Academy, Hawaii Chinese Baptist Church, Mid-Pacific Institute, Hawaii Kai Lions Club, Pauahi Keiki Scholars at Kamehameha Schools and several families and individuals.
We are participating in the Ocean Conservancy’s International Coastal Cleanup, please see the data summary for the full list of items reported by our volunteers. The top items collected are no surprise: 300 cigarette butts 892 food wrappers / containers 257 plastic bags 135 plastic bottle caps … and of course, countless small pieces of glass, foam and plastic!
Several groups removed invasive weeds behind the beach kiosk and the showers, we can now see the rock walls and some native plants again! We posted some before & after photos on Facebook – quite a difference! To view the photos, please like our page on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pg/hanauma/photos/?tab=album&album_id=10157137811378767
We are looking forward to our next cleanup event, which is scheduled for June 1, 2019. Mahalo to all who made this a successful and fun event!
