The New Sand: May Contain Plastic

Travel Blog  •  Pam Mandel  •  05.19.09 | 10:29 AM ET

Photo by Mason Bryant via Flickr (Creative Commons).

The May 2009 issue of Hana Hou!—Hawaiian Airlines’ in-flight mag—includes an article called The Voyage of the Junk. The story is about a journey from California to Honolulu via the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. The ship itself was a trash heap, made out of plastic garbage and leftover bits of a Cessna. The goal of the journey was to raise awareness of the impact that all the plastic crap we create, buy and use is having on the oceans.

There’s a particularly sad and telling passage in the story. Upon arrival in Honolulu, one of the sailors decided to find out how long it would take to pull a piece of plastic out of the water. He hopped overboard, and: “Less than a minute later he was out, holding up an ‘ABC Stores’ bag. ‘Thirty seconds,’ he said, with both triumph and distaste.”

Two years ago I walked the beach at Oahu’s Kualoa Point State Recreation Area, picking over bits of plastic—crazy straws and disposable cameras and pen bodies and toys and lots of lids from sports bottles. Maui County has a plastic bag ban but there’s no Hawaii-wide ban in place. There’s also plenty of churn on the other islands around bag bans—maybe they will, maybe they won’t. On my latest visit, I carried a backpack almost everywhere I went so it was no big deal to decline the bag and toss my groceries in with my sunscreen and camera and towel. The hotel didn’t offer the option to sort my own trash—I ended up tossing recyclables in the garbage nine times out of ten because there were no facilities to do otherwise.

Sadly, environmental sustainability didn’t leave much of an impression as a value in tourism during this last stay in the islands. Kauai seemed a little more switched on to the idea, a little greener—I picked up a Malama Kauai map (malama means “to care for”)—but in urban Honolulu and Waikiki, similar resources weren’t readily available.

Cultural sustainability is going full speed ahead, but maybe that’s because as tourists, we’ll pay for entertainment—arts, music, dance—but we won’t pay to do work of any kind, no matter how small. Perhaps, after we’ve shelled out for a plane ticket, a nine dollar mai tai, and an oceanfront room, we don’t expect to have to sort our paper from our plastic.

Tags: Beaches, Eco Travel, Islands, North America, United States, Hawaii, Honolulu, Kauai, Oahu, Waikiki, The Big Island, Shrinking Planet

Pam Mandel is a freelance writer and photographer from Seattle, Washington. Her work has appeared in a variety of print, radio, and web publications and she's contributed to two guidebooks, one on British Columbia and one on Hawaii. She plays the ukulele, has an internal beacon that is surprisingly capable of locating the best baked goods in town, almost any town, and speaks German with a Styrian accent. Learn more on her personal blog at Nerd's Eye View.


7 Comments for The New Sand: May Contain Plastic

Janelle 05.19.09 | 12:01 PM ET

This is one of my biggest pet peeves! And it stems back from the days when my father and I would walk the beaches on Long Island - and inevitably come back with a bucketful of trash. And it seems incongruous to me that places which are known for their beauty wouldn’t put it together to be environmentally friendly and allow for people to recycle.

saeed 05.19.09 | 12:46 PM ET

http://khayyaminiran.persiangig.com/image/khayyam khali better-Optimized.jpg

please print this picture and translate passage in it to russia language and write it in picture
and give the picture to your friends in russia . tanke you - saeed from iran

Grizzly Bear Mom 05.19.09 | 5:22 PM ET

How very sad.  I carry home recyclables when I drink home, but I won’t be toting them on the plane.  Its a shame hotels don’t have drop off spots so we can sort our own items.  Maybe this is a time to vote with our dollars.  .

Tom 05.20.09 | 12:12 AM ET

Here in Canada, Recycling is an everyday thing as common as brushing your teeth.
Every time I visit Hawaii, I always cringe when I see bartenders and restaurants servers throw glass and plastic away.  I understand that there are some huge costs associated with any recycling project but seeing as it is an island, every little bit helps.

Lindsay 05.20.09 | 10:11 AM ET

It infuriates me when I am on vacation and cannot locate a place to recycle my plastic or glass bottles. I feel nauseous when I throw them into the garbage. Two places that I immediately noticed an abundance of recycling bins were San Francisco and Toronto. Does hawaii charge deposits on bottled drinks? Maybe if there were a financial incentive involved more bars would be willing to recycle, if the facilities even exist there.
In Baja California I couldnt believe how the locals just threw all of their waste onto the ground. I carried a little garbage bag around with me for 6 days until my guide finally told me Id be carrying it all the way back to San Diego, and took it from me and threw it out the window of our van. That was 6 years ago and Im still mad about it! >: (

pam 05.21.09 | 11:30 AM ET

I’m a coastal person by birth and my friends always found it annoying that I would make everyone find additional trash to take AWAY from the beach with us, even in high school I was that horrible self righteous person. But when you’re standing on what is nothing less than spectacular landscape and look down at… sports bottles, plastic figures, etc… it kinda breaks your heart. I’m glad to know you all are out there with me.

debt relief 05.27.09 | 1:18 PM ET

Recycling is the best thing in the world. If everyone doesn’t start to put more efforts into trying to save the world the planet will die. I would hate to see this happen in my children s life.

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