UNDERWATER & SHORELINE CLEAN UP!

In combination with organizations such as the Ocean Conservancy's International Coastal Clean-Up Day and PADI Project Aware's cleanup campaign: Debris Month of Action, Jack's Diving Locker held their annual Pier Clean Up on Saturday, September 15th from 9am-12pm.  Our clean up happens every year on International Coastal Clean up Day and is open to the community for snorkelers, divers, and anyone who wants to help clean up one of Kailua-Kona's most historical and modern hubs. 

Our volunteers consisted mostly of dive club members (diving for trash) who are active in other areas of ocean conservation and are passionate about their environment.  They dove along the pier picking up debris that collects around their pier.  Shore support would haul large mesh bags from the water with lines onto the pier, sort it, catalog the findings, and bag up the trash.  Each diver handed up multiple bags of debris within a two hour time period.  

in about 2 hours 14 divers collected the following items:

• Over 250 glass beer bottles (not to mention lots of broken glass shards)
• At least 20 lbs. of tangled mono-filament line.
• Fishing lures
• Two trash bags full of rope/line.
• Numerous plastic aluminum cans and food containers
• Golf balls, money, credit/ID cards
• Plastic sheeting
• rubber pieces of pier
• metal pipes
• clothing
• sunglasses
• knives, forks, spoons,
• building materials

And there is still more down there!  Community Service Outreach and Events Coordinator, Chrissy Dupuis was Jack's Diving Locker's representative for the cleanup. "I love helping to preserve a place with so much history. This area is utilized every day and needs our support!"  On the shore she worked along side finance and Jack's employee Matt Bogdanovitch and longtime Jack's customer, Frank Iwancio.  

Chrissy will send the data that was collected to the Ocean Conservancy.  The data..."is invaluable to Ocean Conservancy's effort to start a sea change every day; helping us educate public, business, and government officials about the scale and serious consequences of the global marine debris problem." -Ocean Conservancy, International Coastal Clean Up Data Card.  Patti Clay, Jack's Dive Club Member stated that, "there should be a permanent solution to the trash problem at the pier. 
I specifically looked for pieces of plastic including plastic straws because turtles will eat this material."