Plastic Beach

[HereOnThePrimalEdge]

Kamilo, south of Discovery Harbor is described as 'plastic beach' in a recent article from the Guardian.* The writers** interview one person who said she climbed 10 foot high mounds of plastic garbage as a child. I suppose that means it's improved in recent years. There are photos, and it's still a sad sight.

Kamilo Beach, located on the south-eastern tip of Hawaii’s Big Island, has been dubbed one of the most plastic-polluted spots on the planet. On a bright day last summer, Larson and fellow members of the Hawaii Wildlife Fund (HWF), a team of conservation volunteers, collected 1,400lb of it.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020...-pollution

I've seen debris from fishing boats and ships, like lost floats, styrofoam remnants, and personal items that went overboard which have accumulated over time on less visited areas along the coast of Puna, but nothing like Kamilo.

* Based in the UK
** From Honolulu

[Mac2017]

Aloha HOTPE.

I off-road down out there about once a month to see the beautiful area.

By no means is there no trash down there, but I will say I have seen a vast improvement over past couple of years due to folks taking trash out when they leave. I always fill my pick up on the way out. One of the Pahoa transfer site employees asked me where I was getting all the ocean trash. He was very polite and said, keep bringing it when I told him what I was doing.

It is nice to see so many folks chipping in to try and clean it up, but it’s sad to think we can fill up truck after truck.

[taropatch]

Thank you for helping with the cleanup. You can offload at Waiohinu Transfer Station when they are open instead of trucking it to Pahoa.

Megan Lamson of the Hawaii Wildlife Fund welcomes volunteers to help with the work at Kamilo. Have done it a couple of times and it was highly educational.
https://www.wildhawaii.org/people.html

[Carey]

Kamilo Beach was known in ancient times as a gathering place for materials swept to our islands.
It is getting cleaner, by the regular cleaning efforts of volunteers with the Hawaii Wildlife fund:
https://www.wildhawaii.org/projects.html#debris_project
And by the innovative works by UH students, with some of the most recent data (last spring) on the plastics removing machinery brought in to give a finer cleaning of some of the beach area!
https://hilo.hawaii.edu/chancellor/stori...oplastics/

So if you think it should be cleaner, there are ways for you to actually help make it cleaner! VOLUNTEER for one of the regular cleanups, or sponsor some of the cleanup costs or even get your community involved in cleanups (this is a case where everything everyone does locally will help Kamillo Beach have less plastic, as it is a magnet for any that is in the Pacific Gyre!)