Over the years of the NOAA Marine Debris Program, there have been many efforts around the country to rid our waters and shores of marine debris. As part of our ten-year anniversary celebration, let’s take a look back at one of those efforts in our Pacific Islands region.
The Northwestern Hawaiian Islands (NWHI) are beautiful. Home to many amazing animals and clear, turquoise blue water, they are located far from large human populations. However, despite their distance from people, they are still inundated with marine debris that washes up from faraway places. To combat this debris and preserve this paradise, multiple NOAA offices have collaborated on a yearly removal mission to clean debris from the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument and the shores of the NWHI since 1996. The NOAA Marine Debris Program has been involved in this effort since the establishment of our program—that’s ten years of some pretty impressive NWHI removal! How much, you ask? Take a look at the haul over the years:
- 2006: 18.99 metric tons removed
- 2007: 59.21 metric tons removed
- 2008: 28.64 metric tons removed
- 2009: 83.37 metric tons removed
- 2011: 15.02 metric tons removed
- 2012: 51.91 metric tons removed
- 2013: 13.80 metric tons removed
- 2014: 53.67 metric tons removed
- 2015: 14.61 metric tons removed
These annual removal efforts vary in size and scope, generally alternating between large and small missions. The variation in metric tons removed each year does not reflect the amount of debris present on these islands, but the removal effort that was accomplished. This year’s mission was a smaller-scale effort, but still managed to remove 11 metric tons of debris, bringing the total amount of debris removed since the NOAA Marine Debris Program’s involvement to 350.22 metric tons!
For more on this year’s removal mission, check out the blog posts associated with its beginning, middle, and end (including a guest blog by some of the removal team members!).
