Today we decided to give back. Give back to the aina that is. We wanted to do something that would help our community so what better thing to do than to “Bash the Trash”? In partnership with our church, Hope Chapel Kaneohe Bay, we did a Kaneohe cleanup on Kamehameha Highway between Likelike Highway and Haiku Road.

All I can say is that people, not everyone, but enough of them, are slobs. I mean, we only picked up trash on one side of the street (don’t worry, there were other teams doing the other side) for about two and a half blocks and we picked up three trash bags of trash. Three full bags, not partially full. And, to even make matters worse, we got a block in or so and these guys in a van pull up and tell us that they already covered the rest (so most of what we picked up was after they had already scoured the streets once)! Whew! Why can’t people just clean up after themselves?

You’re never too busy to flash the shaka!

Since most of us didn’t want to bend over all day to pick up trash, Krystal and Mel came up with a great idea. They wanted to make pokers to stab the trash with out of broomsticks and nails. I asked them how they were going to attach the nails thinking they were just going to hammer them in and then cut off the head, but they had a far superior technique. They were going to use duct tape. Not regular duct tape mind you, but hot pink duct tape. I guess if you’re going to pick up trash you might as well make a statement out of it (plus the broomstick was bright blue).

Notice the double-barrel action?

After cleaning up a relatively clean block, we got the next block and found a whole boatload of trash in front of a popular local eatery. In addition to all the trash we even found an entire roll of toilet paper. Not the small home rolls mind you, but an industrial, commercial roll. We were going to throw it away, but Uilani mentioned that the homeless people may have left it there for their own personal use. Sounded reasonable we thought, so we just cleaned up around it. Everything was going fine (as fine as trash cleaning goes) until Leilani mentions, “I wonder if that roll is here because the homeless people use the bathroom right here?” Well, thanks Leilani for that wonderful thought. That pretty much grossed everyone out and no one wanted to pick up litter in that particular spot any more.

See the roll by Keao’s feet?

Notice how Jenny is now outside on the asphalt (thanks again Leilani)?

But the great thing about doing community service like this is that everyone can get involved. Uilani brought her kids, Koko and Hao.

Here’s the cutest trash picker-upper

It wasn’t all fun and games though. We did find some pretty interesting and disgusting things. In addition to finding tons of cups, bottles, a jillion cigarette butts, a couple of pairs of shoes and a car seat, we also find this little gem.

It was determined that this was biodegradable so we left it there

But overall, it is satisfying to see the trash in your community cleaned up. Even though other people don’t necessarily care about what Kaneohe looks like, it is gratifying to know that there are people out there that do want to malama ka aina (take care of the land). I just wish that for every person that consciously littered (because there is no way some of these things were just accidentally dropped) there were a few vigilantes of justice that would find them and thrash them good (just kidding…sort of).

Before

After

To view the rest of the pictures click here.