Beachcombing took on a new meaning for volunteers from BYU–Hawaii and the community as, instead of collecting shells, they collected pieces of plastic from the sand and the water at Hukilau Beach. Club organizers and volunteers alike spoke about the importance of promoting beach clean-ups and encouraged all to come out and participate.
Large turnout and support
Kendra Nelson, a sophomore from Arizona studying marine biology, serves as the vice president of service and career for the Marine Research Association club. On Oct. 27, she and other club officials stood at a table set up for volunteers to come, sign in to the event and collect prizes for showing up to clean.
On the table beside the prizes sat glass jars and recycled water bottles filled to the brim with colorful plastics collected from the sand and the ocean during the service project.
Nelson happily motioned to the five pages of the sign-up sheets filled with the names of volunteers who showed for the three hours of service. She smiled about the great turn-out they saw for the event.
On how the service event came about, Nelson said she and the other club officers had been planning this beach cleanup since summer. She then explained how getting sponsors for the event was crucial, and at certain times, slow-going.
“We’ve slowly been getting different sponsors. We have Stasher Bags, OneOcean, Google Tech Creative, Extreme to Sea, OneOcean diving, Abyss Swimsuits, Simply Struck.”
Grace Tuthill, a freshman from Colorado also studying marine biology, serves as the secretary of Marine Research Association. Adding to what Nelson mentioned, Tuthill said, “We had a bunch of different prizes from the sponsors. We got T-shirts, stickers, Stasher bags, jewelry, and other stuff to give out [to the people who came].”
Explaining why these companies would sponsor a beach cleanup, Nelson said, “A few of [of the companies] are Etsy shops that I’ve bought stuff from in the past and I’ve reached out to them and they wanted to donate.
“All of them have something to do with conservation, or raising awareness for ocean life or doing something to prevent plastics from entering the ocean. The swimsuit company, for example, all of their swimsuits are made from fishing nets.”
Awareness for the event
Nelson explained the method behind their advertising for the event as she said, “Social media has been a real help. I post pictures for the event and companies reach out to me and we’ll start a little conversation.
“For advertising, we made posters that we hung up on campus, and then we put them up on Facebook and Instagram. From there OneOcean posted it.”
Sam Merrill, a junior from Alaska studying biology, said he heard about the event from his class when his professor offered extra credit for participation in the service. However, he admitted the extra credit for the class was just an added perk since he likes to come to Hukilau to clean anyway.
On an important reason he personally came to clean microplastics from the beach, Merrill said, “Sometimes microplastics end up in your food,” and urged to others, “don’t put plastic in the ocean because you’ll end up eating it.”
It is not uncommon for microplastic to be ingested by fish and other marine organisms that make their way to human consumption, according to BBC news. Some plastics are too small to be separated out by water filters and may be difficult to be seen by the naked eye.
Why hukilau beach?
Speaking on the decision to host the beach cleanup at Hukilau Beach, Nelson said, “It’s an easy place for people to come and park [for the service project.] We were going to clean Clissold's because it’s really bad with microplastics, but we had a lot of people coming who weren’t from this side of the island who needed to park, so it was more convenient to do it here.
Hukilau is generally pretty bad,” said Nelson. She then added how a perk of cleaning at Hukilau is, “People can stay and have a beach day and enjoy it. We lucked out, it was a nice day.”
When asked if the club is looking to do more beach cleanups in the near future, Tuthill replied, “We will do a big one like this once a semester for the club, and we’ll do a few little ones in between if we know the beaches are really bad.”
Ariel Klingfus, a senior from California studying biology, encouraged other students to come out for the club’s future service events, remembering the great weather they had at the event. She also said it was nice to have a designated day to come to the beach and relax with friends while at the same time giving back to both the community and the environment.
“It’s always nice to do something for the community because [Hukilau Beach] really is the beach to go to. It is interesting to see how much plastic we picked up in three hours, which is so little time.”
Writer: Shannon Crowley