Clean-Up Tons of Debris from the Ocean & Beaches

I hope the new year has started out well for you!

Your Ocean Defenders are feeling strong, coming out of a year busy with successful cleanups at dozens of adopted sites and eight new debris locations. I'm thankful that you're part of our alliance and am grateful for your investment in clean oceans.

Because of your support, we averaged four cleanups per month hauling out the following:

• Over 22,000 pounds of debris, including 3,200 pounds of plastic. Plastic is incredibly lightweight—think about how little a single water bottle or plastic bag weighs. So, when we say we've removed 3,000 pounds of plastic, that means an enormous amount of debris was collected. It takes thousands of bottles, bags, fishing lines, and other plastic waste to add up to that weight, highlighting just how much pollution was in the water and how impactful the cleanup was!
• 62,600 feet in fishing line.
• Over 2,000 pounds of toxic lead fishing weights.
• 620 fishing hooks.
• 7,300 pounds of fishing net.
• 20 lobster traps.
• 188 vehicle tires.

All of the cleanups that you help make happen are important, as you can see from those statistics! Every net, trap, or line we remove is one less hazard for ocean widlife to avoid. Every vehicle tire we remove is one less chemical-leaching object damaging the corals and benthic life living on the ocean floor. Because pieces of plastic and plastic bags can be mistaken for food by animals, we celebrate taking it out of the ocean and inland waterways especially since scientists recently proved that whales are injesting plastic bags.

There's so much to share with you, but I'll try to keep it short with a few great reports from Hawai'i and California:

Hawai'i:

• In April 2024, during an Earth Day cleanup in Kailua Bay, Kona, Hawai'i, we had an epic cleanup with 40 volunteers and six partners (Body Glove, Blue Ocean Mariculture, Junk Authority, Big Island Scrap Metal, Kona Honu Divers, and Kohala Divers). This collective effort resulted in 61 tires weighing 9,900 pounds being hauled out of the beautiful waters and underscores the importance of community partnerships in addressing marine pollution.
• Five trips to the beautiful Pololu Valley on the Big Island reaped huge benefits: Just under 4 tons of nets and ropes!
• Two recreational fishing sites, Deep Step and The Hive, are particularly inundated with abandoned fishing line. In 2024 alone, we've removed over 30,000 of feet of this animal-entangline line.
• Monthly at-sea cleanups continued in Oahu waters resulting in the removal of 6,100 feet of fishing line, 837 toxic lead weights, and 130 fish hooks.

California:

• Two concerned citizens submitted Debris Reports on our special webpage which resulted in 8 lobster traps being removed.
• Seal Beach National Wildlife Refuge (SBNWR): After 4 months of heavy rains, in May we resumed our monthly cleanups and removed over 3,730 pounds of debris (much of it plastic).
• At the end of the year, we were given the opportunity to officially adopt a our second flood control channel (these inland waterways transport stormwater runoff to the ocean and tragically pickup a lot of trash that accumulates in the channel, carrying into the coastal waters). Our channel runs alongside SBNWR and gives us the opportunity to stop untold amounts of plastic and other rubbish from being washed out to the ocean.

We're energized by all these results-driven cleanup operations and I hope you are, too!

With your help, we're ready to tackle debris in 2025!

In order to be more swift and agile in reacting to ocean debris cleanup needs, we're planning to setup Rapid Response equipment on both the Big Island of Hawai'i and in Southern California. Having a smaller vessel (about 26 feet) that we can haul with a truck, will allow us to act swiftly before the debris can be swept into the sea.

Bottom line: You're the reason these cleanups happen! You're the fuel in our tanks, and you buoy our spirits knowing that you're in this with us, by our side from wherever you are. Just imagine the tons of nets, lines, hooks, weights, tires, traps, and rubbish that would still be in harm's way if you hadn't stepped up to invest in the oceans! 

With deep gratitude and ocean-sized thanks,