4,100 Pounds of Trash Removed from Oahu Beach

This past Sunday, on February 20th, 2022, the Nudi Wear team took a familiar trip to Waiahole Beach Park, for our fourth cleanup at this location. Waiahole Beach Park is located on the east side of Oahu and has beautiful views of the Kualoa Mountain Range and Mokoli’i island, also known as Chinaman’s Hat. However, the park is known to collect a large amount of garbage that either washes ashore from ocean currents, flows down streams to the beach, or is carelessly discarded in the park. Prior to this cleanup, we have removed over 7,000 pounds of trash from just this small stretch of the island.

Since our last cleanup at Waiahole Beach Park was almost a year ago, we were prepared for the large amount of trash that had accumulated. We teamed up with two local organizations, Ocean Defenders Alliance-Hawaii (ODA) and Aloha Divers, to tackle the large task. In total, we had 22 volunteers show up ready and willing to jump in and get dirty! The cleanup started at noon in order to take advantage of low tide. We spread out along the beach with buckets and grabbers to pick up trash. We used shovels to remove tires, fishing nets, and other debris that had been slowly buried and hidden in the sand and mud over time.

In a little over two hours we found and removed a box of auto parts, 12 tires, a large metal drum, pieces of boats, a generator, piles of discarded fishing gear, and the too common single use plastics.

For our finale, we dug a 10 foot skiff out of the sand and towed it to the road for collection. Mahalo to Honolulu Department of Parks and Recreation (DPR) for assistance with the removal and disposal of all the debris. This daunting task would not be possible with out them!

In total, we collected an astonishing 4,100 pounds of debris from the beach and surrounding park. Mahalo to ODA, Aloha Divers, DPR, and all the volunteers who took time out of their weekend and busy schedules to come together to show some much needed aloha for the ‘aina.