These eaten plastic bottles were collected from Hawaii's shoreline. Photo courtesy of B.E.A.C.H.

The Beach Environmental Awareness Campaign Hawai‘i and Ecology Club at the University of Hawaii at Manoa present "POPS, Plastic and Hawaii's Marine Life," a series of free, public lectures in April. The lectures will take place every Monday at the University of Hawaii at Manoa Architecture auditorium.

>> 6:30 to 8 p.m. Monday, April 8: B.E.A.C.H. co-founder Suzanne Frazer speaks about plastic in the environment and how it is harmful to our health and marine life. Learn about the chemicals in plastic.

>> 6:30 to 8 p.m. Monday, April 15: Jessica Lopez, field research supervisor for the NOAA Hawaiian Monk Seal Research Program, discusses threats faced by the endangered monk seals, including her recent research into POPS (persistent organic pollutants).

>> 6:30-8 p.m. Monday, April 22: Dr. Brenda Jensen discusses the diversity and unique ecology of the whales and dolphins found in Hawaii, as well as her team's recent finding measuring POPs and marine debris in marine mammals.

>> 6:30-8 p.m. Monday, April 29: Dr. Magnus Engwall presents: "Assessing the Toxicity of Plastic Marine Debris & Harm to Marine Life." Dr. Engwall will speak about his research on POPs and what he's found in his investigation of plastic marine debris from Hawaii's beaches.

Join Sustainable Coastlines Hawaii for a beach cleanup on the North Shore Saturday (March 2). Meet at Turtle Bay Resort's West Lawn. Photo from sustainablecoastlineshawaii.org.

Sustainable Coastlines Hawaii is hosting a North Shore beach clean up from 10:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Saturday (March 2). Meet at the West Lawn at Turtle Bay Resort and follow the blue flags. The general public as well as participants of Wanderlust Oahu Festival (a four-day yoga and music event) are welcome to attend.

Shuttles will transport volunteer teams to Kahuku Golf Course Beach and Kahuku Point at the James Campbell Wildlife Refuge to collect microplastics to be recycled by Method Home.

The whole family is welcome to participate. Some fun games include a hunt for hidden glass bottles during the cleanup to win prizes, including tickets to the evening Wanderlust concert featuring ALO and Kaki King, plus day passes to Sunday festival activities, as well as kids' clothing from Patagonia, Hurley and Quiksilver.

Water, a snack, gloves, tally sheets and other cleanup materials will be provided.

For more information, visit sustainablecoastlinesshawaii.org.

Hawaii green sea turtles on the North Shore are among marine mammals threatened by plastic litter on the shores. Photo by Nina Wu.

Surfers and non-surfers alike, mark your calendars for the "Da Hui North Shore Beach Clean Up" on Saturday, Nov. 10.

Check-in time is 8 a.m. at Turtle Bay Resort, where different groups will then be shuttled to various zones for the beach cleanup and treasure hunt scheduled between 8:30 to 10:30 a.m. Enjoy a free barbecue and live music afterwards at about 11 a.m. from Mike Love, Paula Fuga and other bands, plus a pro-surf autograph session at 12:30 p.m.

Da Hui (short for Hui O He‘e Nalu) teams up with Sustainable Coastlines Hawaii for the clean up, as well as the Kokua Hawaii Foundation, Eddie Aikau Foundation and Surfrider Foundation, Oahu Chapter.

Quiksilver, Hurley, Volcom, Oakley and others are sponsoring the event.

All debris collected from the  beach cleanup will be tallied and reported to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Hard plastics will also go to Method to be transformed into recycled packaging. Method recently came out with the first bottles made from a blend of plastic debris collected from Oahu's shores for its dish + hand soap, available at Whole Foods Market.

Claire Flynt, last year's best overall winner of "One Foot at a Time" - Photo from raptober.org/images.

It's Raptoberfest time.

That's the Rise Above Plastics version of Oktoberfest. The Surfrider Foundation kicked off the second annual "Raptober" celebration earlier last week - it's a month-long effort to educate and inspire the public to eliminate plastic waste from our oceans.

"Each year millions of seabirds, fish and marine mammals die due to ingestion of, or entanglement in plastic," said Bill Hickman, Surfrider Foundation's Rise Above Plastic Program Coordinator. "By dedicating the entire month of October toward educating the public on the effects of marine plastics, we hope to jump start their desire to reduce their own personal plastic footprints and the amount of litter reaching our seas."

Some simple things you can do (as illustrated by Raptoberfest cartoons) include:

>> If you see a friend drinking out of a plastic water bottle, encourage them to switch to a reusable water bottle.

>> If you see a a friend using a single-use plastic bag, offer them a reusable bag.

>> During the week of Oct. 15, join or renew your membership to the Surfrider Foundation for a discount of $30 and get a wallet or pocketbook handmade from upcycled plastic bags collected from Bali beaches.

Read more at "10 Ways" to reduce your plastic footprint.

Participate in the "One Foot at a Time" plastic cleanup challenge again. Here's how it works: Participants collect one square foot of trash from their beach or community, then use the material to create a unique mosaic sculpture using one of five downloadable templates on the Foundation's Raptober event website.

The Foundation will judge photo submissions of the sculptures. Winners get cool surfgear, including a surfboard, from Rusty.

Visit www.raptober.org for more about the contest.

Captain Charles Moore, author of "Plastic Ocean," will return to Oahu on Sunday, Oct. 14 for  more of "The Plastic Pollution Conversation — Pacific Rim Tour 2012." He'll be at the University Laboratory School Cafeteria from 3 to 6 p.m. on Sunday.

If you haven't joined the conversation yet, now's a good time to begin.

Moore, also founder of the Algalita Marine Research Institute, is eager to tell you the story of how he first stumbled upon plastic debris, now known as the Pacific Garbage Patch sailing from Hawaii back to California after a yacht race — how the "plastic soup" pollution continues, and how it is harmful to the ocean as well as human health.

He'll talk about the most recently completed Algalita expedition to the Pacific Garbage Patch as well as the 2011 tsunami debris making its way across the North Pacific Gyre.

"Plastic is now a pollutant - it was unintended, but it happens to be an unintended consequence of doing everything more easily with plastic," says Moore. "The throwaway lifestyle, discard of single-use plastics has created, along with other disposed plastics, a plastic soup in our generalized ocean with garbage patches in the five major gyres. Millions of square miles of the ocean are highly polluted with the broken down products of our plastic age...to me this requires a plastic pollution conversation."

Moore wants to bring the volume of the conversation up. Besides Hawaii, he travels to Japan, Hong Kong,  Australia, New Zealand and Chile.

"We've got to rethink our relationship with plastic," he says.

The talk is presented by Moore's Algalita Marine Research Institute, the Kokua Hawaii Foundation, University Laboratory School and Surfrider Foundation. University Laboratory School is at 1776 University Ave. Parking is available on the lower athletic field.

For more information, contact plasticfree@kokuahawaiifoundation.org.

Check it out!

Method is introducing what it calls "the world's first bottle made with ocean plastic" for its new 2-in-1 dish and hand soap.

It's made partially from plastic debris that Method employees hand-collected from Hawaii beaches over the last year and a half, in partnership with non-profit groups including the Kokua Hawaii Foundation and Sustainable Coastlines Hawaii.

Just two weeks ago, Sustainable Coastlines Hawaii organized a beach cleanup at Kailua and Lanikai, where more than 700 volunteers collected 11,306 pieces of microplastic.

The San Francisco-based company worked with Envision Plastics to recycle the plastic debris into bottles, which are a combination of ocean plastic and post-consumer recycled plastic. The result is a gray resin.

Method, which makes green cleaning products, introduced the bottle to help raise awareness about the several million tons of plastic that pollute the ocean and harm the marine populations every year.

According to Method:

>> Plastics are estimated to represent almost 80 percent of the total marine debris floating in the world's oceans.

>> On average, there are 46,000 pieces of plastic swirling in each square mile of our oceans.

>> Every year, at least 1 million sea birds and 100,000 sharks, turtles, dolphins and whales die from eating plastic. (You've seen the laysan albatross with stomachs full of plastic).

>> Fish in the middle depths of the Northern Pacific Ocean are ingesting up to 24,000 tons of plastic per year.

>> A total of 267 species around the world are harmed by plastic: 86 percent sea turtles, 44 percent seabirds and 43 percent of ocean mammals ingest or become tangled in plastic (Remember the beached whale on Kauai that biologists later found had swallowed plastic?)

"Through this new and innovative use of recovered ocean plastic, we hope to show how design can be used to tackle environmental problems," said Method in its card description. "We're not saying that the solution to the ocean plastic problem is making bottle out of trash, but by doing so we can prove that there are alternatives to using virgin materials — like PCR plastic, which we use in all of our bottles. By recycling + reusing existing plastic, we can turn off the tap."

Method's ocean plastic bottles of dish + hand soap hits the shelves at Whole Foods Market nationwide this week for $4.99. The biodegradable formula is available in two fragrances: sea minerals or sweet water. Also available at methodhome.com.

Volunteers scour Kailua beach for marine debris and litter, including microplastics, cigarette butts and bottle caps during a beach cleanup for International Coastal Cleanup Day on Sept. 15. Photo courtesy of Sustainable Coastlines Hawaii.

Pieces of microplastic surpassed the number of cigarette butts in Sustainable Coastline Hawaii's latest tally of its beach cleanup at Kailua and Lanikai (including the  Mokoluas & Flat Island) on Sept. 15, International Coastal Cleanup Day.

Some 700 volunteers on that Saturday picked up an estimated:

>> 11,306 pieces of microplastic

>> 8,891 cigarette butts

>> 2,563 Styrofoam cps and containers

>> 2,146 food and candy wrappers

>> 1,533 caps, lids and tops

>> 1,385 non-nylon rope and net

>> 945 bottle  caps

>> 868 glass bottles

>> 717 rubber pieces

>> 677 plastic bags

>> 655 fishing nets/rope

>> 522 aluminum cans

>> Volunteers also picked up 462  beverage bottles, 450 large pieces of plastic, 342 personal care products, 231 utensils, 159 pieces of clothing/shoes, 108 toys, 31 lighters and 11 tires.

When volunteers participate in a beach cleanup, they also fill out tally sheets that help SCH 1) convey the true power of collective action 2) understand where the rubbish is coming from for source reduction education and 3) help initiate legislation that reduces pollution.

Microplastics, cigarette buttes and Styrofoam remain at the top of the list, according to Sustainable Coastlines Hawaii, which says "refusing Styrofoam, making sure butts are properly disposed of, and avoiding purchasing plastic can make a huge difference in the health and safety of our oceans."

The data is also reported to NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration).

Nearly 50 metric tons of marine debris, which threaten monk seals and other marine life, were collected from the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, or Papahanaumokuakea. Photo courtesy of NOAA.

Scientists aboard the NOAA Ship Oscar Elton Sette collected nearly 50 metric tons of marine debris from Papahanaumokuakea earlier this week.

The debris, which basically is trash that ends up in the ocean, whether it be derelict fishing nets, ropes or pieces of disposable plastic, threatens monk seals, sea turtles and other marine life in the coral reef ecoystem.

NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) has been conducting annual removal missions of marine debris from Papahanaumokuakea (or the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands) since 1996 as part of a coral restoration effort.

“What surprises us is that after many years of marine debris removal in Papahānaumokuākea and more than 700 metric tons of debris later, we are still collecting a significant amount of derelict fishing gear from the shallow coral reefs and shorelines,” said Kyle Koyanagi, marine debris operations manager at NOAA Fisheries’ Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center and chief scientist for the mission. “The ship was at maximum capacity and we did not have any space for more debris.”

The marine debris was collected from waters and shorelines around the northernmost islands and atolls including: Kure Atoll, Midway Atoll, Pearl and Hermes Atoll, Lisianski Island and Laysan Island.

It will be converted into energy through the Hawaii Nets to Energy Program.

The NOAA team also looked for debris from the 2011 tsunami in Japan, but did not find any.

"Changing Tides," a 15-minute documentary about Hawaii's marine debris, was officially selected for the 2012 Maui Film Festival and will be shown at 4 p.m. at the Maui Arts and Cultural Center this Saturday, June 16.

The Sustainable Living Institute of Maui, Positive H20 and Surfrider Foundation teamed up with award-winning filmmaker filmmaker Danny Miller to produce the film.

The Northern Pacific Gyre, more commonly known as the "Great Pacific Garbage Patch," has an impact not only on Hawaii residents but other Pacific Islands and the rest of the globe. It's a global problem.

An estimated 26 million tons of plastic end up in the ocean every year - tons of "plastic debris" — pieces of plastic that have broken down or been eaten up by marine animals in the ocean, wash up on Hawaii shorelines.

The story is told through the eyes of Hawaiian kupuna, professional watermen, scientists and volunteers who all share a passion for the ocean and are trying to protect it.

Besides demonstrating the real dangers of marine debris, the film also provides solutions individuals can take to decrease their plastic footprint.

On Saturday morning (June 16), Positive H2O and Surfrider are also holding a beach cleanup from 9 a.m. to noon at Launiupoko Beach, with free lunch from Lulu's afterwards. Bring your boards to enjoy the "clean water playground" after the cleanup.

Visit sustainablemaui.org for more details.

Enthusiastic boy pitches in during one of Sustainable Coastline Hawaii's beach cleanups. Photo courtesy of Sustainable Coastline Hawaii.

Get ready, get set, clean!

The Surfrider Foundation and Sustainable Coastlines Hawaii are organizing a week full of events, including two beach cleanups — one on the north shore and one on the south shore — in celebration of International Surfing Day (June 20).

On Sunday, June 17, join in on the fun with a south shore coastal cleanup of Diamond Head beginning at 9:45 a.m. followed by a thank you party at Tiki's Bar & Grill in Waikiki. There will be free food and prizes for volunteers, sponsored by Barefoot Wines.

On Saturday, June 23, Surfrider and Sustainable will be joined by the Kokua Hawaii Foundation to host a North Shore coastal cleanup of the James Campbell Wildlife Refuge. Check-in is at 9:30 a.m., with the cleanup from 10 a.m. to about noon. The beach cleanup is followed by a 5 p.m. party at The Refinery Project in Waialua. Event sponsor Method cleaning products will collect the day's plastic to recycling into product packaging. Gloves, trash  bags and water will be provided. Also, during the beach cleanup, look for glass bottles buried in the sand — those who discover them can receive prices from sponsors including Quiksilver, Patagonia and Hurley.

The cleanups are kid-friendly and include fun, educational components on ways participants can reduce their environmental impact on the ocean. The trash and debris collected are tallied and reported to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

On Wednesday, June 20, participate in a group surf. Details will be available on the International Surfing Week on Oahu Facebook page. Also, shop at Whole Foods and 5 percent of the store's proceeds will be donated to Surfrider Foundation's Oahu chapter.

"If you surf, if you love and respect the ocean, come out and show your support," says Sustainable Coastline's executive director Kahi Pacarro.