Rubbish Everywhere...

[kani-lehua]

We've been on picnics at several parks and have actually waived down some pickers none of whom have had a grabber. They do make their rounds, but some recyclables may just get left behind.

Isn't drinking alcoholic beverages in public another finable offense? I know a lot of us here are/have been guilty of doing just that and leaving the glass bottles at/by the trashcan.



"a great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices."

w. james

[Carey]

There are many non-enforced regulations at parks, esp. at the beach parks, most all do carry a fine if they were enforced. ETA: Alcoholic beverages are not banned at all parks, and not even at all beach parks....just got an email on this...

Leaving litter because "some one else will pick it up" may have merit, but ONL if you know that some one else will pick it up. In the example above, Tossing water bottles from your car AT a trash can at a beach park (near enough to the parking to toss the water bottles) sounds more like littering than thoughtful placing of recyclables, and should not be encouraged.

PS. Of the tons of recyclables that I have helped remove from the beaches here (16 cleanups & counting!), I am sure most everyone that dumped the bottles & cans had some reason.... but the end result was an insult to our oceans.... I would love to see far fewer reasons to leave trash that can easily end up in the ocean....

BTW: most of the recyclables that are removed in cleanups cannot be recycled...after just a few weeks, they are too fouled to be accepted, even in the bins...so we have folks that sort through the debris hauled up by divers, and most all of that is just trash!!!

[EightFingers]

No respect (malama) or love (aloha) for the islands is what leads to this. I can't imagine just pitching something out to the wind.

Malama ka aina!

[Orchidlandguy]

I pick up other people's rubbish once a week from the end of Beach Road through the Shipman property. I am approved by the Shipman corp. guys to do this pick up and haul out. It is amazing what I get every week. Many locals still set up entire fish camps with large tarps and yet leave their rubbish. I cart out whatever I can lift and fit in my old pick up. sometimes I bring back some muscle and heave-ho to get rid of dishwashers and refridges. I have hauled out many computers and tv as well as old mattresses. Mainly I halu out bottles, cans and food containers and plastic bags. Of course there are lots of fish bones and nets that are torn and hooks and fish line. All dangerous. These folks come to enjoy being on the lava cliffs and being in the beauty, but they leave it much worse than they found it.
One thing I will not do is clean up their "toilet area". When a group camps for a weekend they leave an amazing amount of broken glass, but what they leave the most and stays right there is their human waste. I am not picking that up. This is really a concern for the folks who enjoy the Shipman paths. It is unhealthy for the dogs and people who walk here. They leave TONS of toilet paper human waste areas which really spoil the cliffs for others.

What can you do? When you are enjoying the cliff paths in Shipman and come upon someone camping get their license plate numbers and let them know you will be coming back. If there is litter there in the area after they have left you can call Shipman office and report them. Usually that works for me, but it does not work for the "toilet areas". People shouldn't camp without facilities. If they do they need to go in a bucket with a top and cart it out with them.

Yes, it is illegal and not ok with the Shipman office to camp on the property. You can walk on the paths.

[DTisme]

My neighbor regularly throws a McDonald's (or other) bag out her window on the way home. I guess she doesn't want her husband to know she's eating it. We've picked up tons of her *&^#$@ bags. Oh well. So yes, people do throw stuff out of windows. Mostly, though, I think it's from unsecured trash in the back of cars and trucks. I've seen stuff flying off trucks lots and lots of times.

[DTisme]

I don't see why we can't all get together for regular trash pickup. We can wear bright colored t-shirts. Scuba Sunday? How about Pick Up Saturday?? If we can all make cookies for a cookie exchange, why can't we all pick it up together???

[missydog1]

What a distressing problem.
I feel lucky that my area doesn't have this problem. One time in five years someone left some bulky stuff by the road, but it was picked up by the next day. My area is mostly local families, so not all behave this way.

This is not an excuse, but I think that in the past, the options for waste disposal were not there, and people adopted an attitude that nature and the jungle would decompose the trash. Throw it in the gulch ... whole other mentality.

There is no excuse for it now, but I wonder how much has been passed down from the old days. Another thing about the Pacific islands is that pre-contact, they didn't have all these manufactured items of Western culture. It seems that in general the island cultures didn't quite know how to adapt to disposable culture on a small rock. Hawai'i is not the only Pacific culture where littering is common.

I am not excusing, but I feel there is a background we are not understanding when we condemn. Education on this stuff starts with the children, that is where the chain of habit can be broken.

I think it is a great thing that so many want to be part of clean-ups, but I have trouble motivating myself to pick up other people's litter. It doesn't do anything to reduce littering, and might even encourage people, as someone will pick it up. But then, I was also one of those moms who made my boys pick up their own room, no matter how much it bothered me, it was their opala not mine. []

[Kapohocat]

quote:

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Originally posted by DTisme

I don't see why we can't all get together for regular trash pickup. We can wear bright colored t-shirts. Scuba Sunday? How about Pick Up Saturday?? If we can all make cookies for a cookie exchange, why can't we all pick it up together???

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There is a group of us who do this if you would like to join in. Damon Tucker is the person who got it rolling - he started a facebook page called Opala in Paradise, and he, Starsha young, Kevin Dayton, and others have kept it rolling. They have a bad spots identified and then usually on a Saturday a group shows up and hauls as much as can away. We did one down here a few months ago on red road - 6 truckloads of trash including appliances to the dump. Check it out if you use Facebook - and if you dont, you can contact Damon at damontucker.com

[Carey]

re: cleaning up the roadside with bright t-shirts - HPP Neighborhood watch also did this in the past in their subdivision, and anyone can join together & form a clean-up crew! Keep Hawaii Beautiful has supplied T-shirts, bright orange bags & such in the past (of course, based on funding...). link:
http://hawaiiwastemanagement.wordpress.com/

If your group really wants to get involved, there is even the adopt a highway program...

[BradW]

It's a general dis-respect from the locals in Puna. I know after five years of watching them throw their trash out the window when they were almost home. My neighbor always opened the doors of his van and had his kids push stuff out on the way down our street. Disgusting behavior. When I asked him about it, he insisted I "go home".