Love for our oceans and shores

It only took a few weeks until I found the time in my schedule to enjoy my morning walk at the beach instead of my treadmill. Last Friday was one of our recently rare days of sunshine for the windward side as its been our normal winter rainy weather.

I was so happy to be able to watch the sun rise higher over the water with every step. A few moments of peace in my day just for me. It is always wonderful to feel the sand under my feet and the splash of the ocean on my legs as I walked towards the sun, my starting point was Kalama beach and I walked toward Kailua beach.

Unfortunately the sand was still littered with plastic from the garbage trail. It was only a few weeks ago when Diane Ako and I went out to try and make a difference and clean as much as we could. Her efforts with press releases to the media and awareness to the situation may have brought light to the issue, but still more has to be done.

On my return back, I hand carried a water bottle I found on the sand until I could dispose of it at the trash can at the Kalama beach park entrance.

As I was walking back though, I had an idea, what if there were sifters or clean up bags easily accessible at the parks and a sign to let people feel free to help with clean up efforts. Seriously who would take that home? Since there were businesses that offered items to help with clean up, maybe they could get permission to leave some of these tools there, somewhere near the trash cans.

I wasn't expecting to see any debris on the sand on this trip and hadn't planned to do clean up, but if I had the time and there were available tools to make it easier, I just might have.

Hoping to bring more awareness and maybe more help towards future clean up efforts. If everyone who went to the beach just picked up a little something here and there, I'm sure it wouldn't take long until we finally got it all removed permanently from our beautiful coastlines and never have to worry about it in our oceans.

Please check out Diane's blog, she has great links to organizations and more info on clean up if you are interested. If you can't make it to the beach, you can still help. All it takes is one Facebook post, a tweet, or sending a message or making a call. We don't always have the time to volunteer, but we all have a voice and we all can show in our own way our concern. Sometimes just being a messenger to get the word out to those that have the time and resources to help, can make a tremendous difference.

http://smalltalk.staradvertiserblogs.com/2012/12/21/microplastic-debris-pollutes-kailua-beach/

My other posts about the beach debris and clean up.
Living Pono http://goo.gl/JhUNh
Kailua Beach Invaded http://goo.gl/L9I2E

Mahalo for your kokua.
Me me aloha pumehana,
Maile