2. TRASH ON THE BEACHES OF HAWAII
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has
been trying to keep critical parts of the ocean clear of
marine debris, removing 57 tons of it from the
Northwestern Hawaiian Islands in 2014.
4. "It's not a hopeless situation. Marine debris is absolutely a
solvable problem because it comes from us humans and
our everyday practices.”
N.O.A.A strives to make a difference.
5. Each fiscal year (October through September), the Marine
Debris Program supports projects across the country that
use outreach and education as a way to prevent marine
debris. These projects aim to change behavior, especially
among youth, and provide them with hands-on experiences
that deepen their understanding of the marine debris
problem
6. IN HAWAII: The Mālama Learning Center and the NOAA Marine
Debris Program teamed up to tackle marine debris through
community education and outreach in Leeward (West) Oahu.
Originally, there was speculation that Japan's devastating 2011 tsunami had brought a wave of debris to Hawaii's islands, but recent results from an aerial survey suggest otherwise
This survey was conducted so that these groups could see how big of an impact the Japanese storm had on Hawaii. It turns out the catastrophic storm wasn't the trash culprit. TURNS OUT IT IS MOSTLY COMMON EVERYDAY ITEMS.
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
And that's really the big problem — to prevent the debris from entering the ocean in the first place. So what can you, me, or anyone do to help?
[Dianna Parker] "There's so much that we can do to keep debris from entering the ocean. It's as simple as changing your individual behavior every day, creating less waste, reusing what you can, remembering to recycle ... littering is obviously a no-no. And then going out and joining a beach clean up. It's difficult to really understand the problem until you get out there and see it first-hand, how bad the problem is."
The Mālama Learning Center promoted environmental stewardship and marine debris prevention through education and outreach in Leeward Oahu. This community of predominantly Native Hawaiians and other Pacific Islanders is an impoverished area undergoing rapid growth and development, and thus producing more and more waste. This project aimed to inspire shifts in the perspectives of community members regarding natural resources; it worked to draw attention to how the community is adversely affected by the current “throw-away society” mentality, by making the connection between marine debris and the strong cultural ties of the community to the ocean.
This education and outreach campaign included several separate activities to reach various audiences
An issue in Hawaii is most beaches do not have trash cans available. People bring in all sorts of trash and the average person definitely does not want to pack out trash but there is no where to put the garbage. If we can get a trash can every 50 yards or so along the beaches people will either throw away the trash or even if they see it pick it up as they walk!
A few possible ideas with adding the garbage cans would be, using the garbage collected from beaches each year we can use the collected waste to construct the garbage cans we use on the beaches.
Some may complain about the ugly trashcans on the beach so we can build garbage cans that fit in with the beach and environment.