Wanting to keep the beaches in Laie clean and beautiful, Dr. Spencer Ingley, assistant professor of biology, with his natural resource management class were motivated to find out the sources of the littering problem on the BYU–Hawaii campus.
Dividing the class into groups so they could cover seven different areas on campus, including the Temple View Apartments, they conducted a trash survey during March 2019.
After gathering and taking note of the items students picked up on their assigned routes, the top three most common types of trash they found were plastic wrappers, paper scraps and clothing left on the streets and plants around campus.
The survey also revealed how students found the most trash in the TVA areas compared to the hales.
All leads to the ocean
Ingley said in his class they discussed preventing pollution around streams and rivers because ultimately the trash ends up in our oceans.
“People think it’s just a piece of trash on the ground that will just get buried, but eventually that's going to get carried out pretty quickly into the swamp drains. There's no filter there. There’s nothing filtering out plastic bottles or other rubbish.”
Paolo Poblete, a junior from the Philippines studying biology, said conducting the survey made him recognize what he throws away impacts the environment.
“As a class, [the trash survey] has raised our awareness of how we have to be environmentally conscious. Individually, we’re learning how the things we think are not [harmful or bad], still produce harm to the environment.”
In an article from governor.hawaii.gov, Suzanne Case, the chair for the Department of Land and Natural Resources, said the source of the trash that is washed up in the shores of Hawaii were “common, everyday items that someone haphazardly tossed onto the ground or directly into the water.”
Case continued, “These items get caught up in ocean currents, and unfortunately much of it eventually lands, mostly on north and east facing shores.
“Hawai’i is recognized around the world for our beautiful beaches. Unfortunately, we cannot say they are pristine, because they’ve been so seriously impacted by our trash.”
A mass of plastic
In regards to why there is the most trash in TVA areas compared to the hales, Ingley expressed a lack of available trash cans.
“If a child was taught to throw their trash in the trash can, they are not available to them. Kids will have pockets, but they're not going to stick their little plastic wrapper in their pockets and wait until they get back.”
Ingley continued, “Many of them are out with their friends. They're running around, and they're having fun. The wrappers end up on the ground.”
According to the result of the survey, 52 percent of the trash the students picked up was composed of plastic. The survey showed the top three types of plastic trash were plastic wrappers, plastic lids and foam or plastic cups.
In one of BYUH President John S. Tanner’s Pacific Ponderings titled “Kuleana for Campus and Community,” he recalled an experience of his during a morning run. As Tanner was running, he noticed there was a plastic bottle floating in the Kahawainui stream.
He said, “It was a small blemish on an otherwise beautiful landscape. Nonetheless, it pained me to see this bottle beginning a journey out to sea, where I knew that it could take 500 years or more to decompose.”
Tanner continued to discuss how students and the community must take care of the earth.
He shared the earth was given to Adam and Eve “as a glorious gift from God,” and they were commanded to take good care of it. He said, “Like Adam and Eve, we, too, should take good care of what little remnant of Eden we are responsible for, including our home here in Hawaii.”
Finding ways to minimize trash
Ingley’s class proposed to have more common trash cans in TVA where people could dispose trash.
Some commented on how trash cans should also be more accessible and noticeable for children. They suggested painting these bins a brighter color so people could see them even from a distance.
Regarding receipts which fell under the paper waste category that took up 24 percent of the survey results, Sariah Albania, a senior from Spain studying information systems, said she likes the idea some shops in Ala Moana Shopping Center implemented.
Albania said those shops, rather than giving you a paper receipt, they send it automatically to your phone number.
“I think that was a good idea because I don't have to worry about throwing the paper anymore or keeping the receipt [because] I just have to look [for it on] my phone.”
BYUH has been doing their share on keeping the environment clean. The C-Store and Seasider sometimes holds raffle contests where students can win fun prizes. They require the participants to write their emails on the back of their receipts which helps prevent them from flying around the campus. The university also has service days where everyone can join to help keep different areas in Hawaii clean.
Poblete explained the results they gathered from this survey was proposed to be made into a poster they could present in one of the conferences held on campus.
He shared he wanted to report to the TVA’s management the results and how they should collaborate to look for ways to help solve this problem.
Tanner added in his Pacific Pondering that he encouraged the students and community to practice responsibility towards our environment.
“It grieves me to see litter on the campus, town, or beaches. When I see it, I stop, stoop and pick it up. I invite you to do the same. As good stewards let us follow the simple motto, ‘Pause and pick up.’”
Writer: Esther Insigne