"Get the Drift and Bag It!"

Yesterday marked the first day of the Ocean Conservancy's International Coastal Cleanup (ICC)! This is a month long cleanup event where anyone can conduct their own beach cleanup AND do research at the same time. The cleanup goes through October 15th, and I provided the link where you can find data sheets and learn more about marine debris on our beaches worldwide.

Malama Maui Nui hosted the kickoff event for Maui County in Kahului Harbor. Pacific Whale Foundation, the company I currently work for, was a partner for the event so we had our tent with marine debris displays and also information on the tobacco free parks and beaches law. Pacific Whale Foundation was there to collect all of the cigarette butts for the day to show how many are littering our coastlines.

WE COLLECTED A 5 GALLON BUCKET OF CIGARETTE BUTTS IN 2 HOURS

Participants were collecting the cigarette butts in metal pails, and each pail could hold anywhere between 250-300 cigarette butts. They would then empty their pails into the bucket at the Pacific Whale Foundation tent. I personally picked up 115 and it only filled about a quarter of the pail. Crazy!

Here's some photos of our displays, including the plastic bag jellyfish I made and shared with you guys in my other post about marine debris.

My tub displaying how ocean currents move around the Hawaiian Islands, and how trash ends up on our beaches. The facts with photos below go more in depth to how everything works.

It was a very successful day of cleaning up the harbor and hanging out with the community and raising awareness. We had lots of people come by to try and guess how long each item takes to breakdown in the ocean. Can you guess?

Other items collected:

• tractor tire
• 2 couches
• vacuum
• bottle caps

If you live near the coast, I challenge you to pick up 5 pieces of trash on the beach and dispose of them properly where they won't blow out of a trash bin and back into the ocean!

~Jill