HONOLULU (KHON2) — During long weekends and holidays, beaches are typically a lot more crowded than usual. But unfortunately, with more people usually comes more trash and waste, and not all of it ends up in the trash can.
Trash from the beaches can often end up swept into the current and end up becoming marine debris and harming marine life, a problem the islands have consistently been dealing with.
“Marine debris is an issue every single week, and probably every single day on our tours we pick up at least one piece of trash,” said Kayleigh Grant, owner of Kona Ocean Safari Tour company Kaimana Ocean Safari. “This week in particular, we did find a higher amount of marine debris. We saw a lot of plastic water bottles, we saw some plastic bags.”
In a video posted to her social media, Grant showed her team fishing over half a dozen pieces of trash out of the water in just the past week alone.
To help address the ongoing issue, Hawaii’s Department of Land and Natural Resources has organized a Marine Debris Rapid Response Program.
From Oct. 2021 to Dec. 31, 2024, 191,177 pounds of marine debris were removed from Hawaii’s coastlines, reefs, and oceans through multiple contracted organizations.
According to the DLNR Website, “Marine debris of any size poses a threat to the health and safety of the human population as well as birds, all marine species, and the fringing coral reef that protects our shorelines from erosion.”
Grant, whose business primarily focuses on traveling on the water and admiring marine life, says that seeing the amount of debris she’s seen over the last week, and throughout her day-to-day life, is particularly disappointing.
“It’s very heartbreaking to see marine debris in the ocean because wildlife could easily become entangled in this debris,” said Grant. “Also plastic never goes away. It actually just keeps breaking down into small pieces of plastic called microplastics, and then marine life can ingest it. So it’s a huge problem.”
If you see a large amount of marine debris, the DLNR asks take a picture and send in a Marine Debris Report Form, found on their website here.