The ASCC group consisted of members from the Strategies for Ecology Education, Development and Sustainability (SEEDS) environmental club, the Once Were Warriors student club, and students from the marine science program. The group planned on a full beach clean-up, but participants never made it past a half-mile from the start area. There was that much trash. Alvin Lin, a Marine science student, was so impressed with the amount of plastic, glass, and Styrofoam that had drifted onto the beach that he decided to weigh the amount of debris that were picked up. It came to over 1000 pounds.

''I know that some of it, like the buoys, might have broken off their ropes and floated ashore," Jessica Tauiautusa, a SEEDS club member, wrote in a reflection about the clean-up. ''But the juice, milk, and other containers must have been tossed into the ocean by uncaring people. Some of the trash we found should have been recycled, and other items such as the oil containers and kitchen appliances should have been properly disposed of.”

If people shared the shock of Tauiautusa and Mauigoa, our community would be on the way to cleaner beaches and a less blighted island. The student participants received a firsthand lesson in how trash can circulate for hundreds and even thousands of miles to a final resting place that, in our case, took up an entire afternoon to only partially clean. Many people have the misconception that most of the trash comes from careless boaters and fishermen, but debris from marine vessels actually accounts for only 20 percent. According to last year's report by the US Commission on Ocean Policy, 80 percent of marine debris actually begins as land trash, a lot of it carelessly thrown on to sidewalks and streets, bag by bag, plastic bottle by plastic bottle, then eventually washed into waterways by rain.

A glimpse of how much trash human beings throw into the ocean comes every fall in the Ocean Conservancy's International Coastal Clean-up Day. Last year, a half-million volunteers picked up 8 million pounds of debris from American coastlines, enough to circle the Earth seven times. In the late 1990s, marine researcher Charles Moore discovered a spot in the North Western Hawaiian Islands where the currents and winds draw plastic debris into concentrations of a million pieces per square mile.

The ASCC participants did not have to see a million parts per square mile to be appalled. ''What gives people the right to throw their stuff on the ground?" asked Hua-Ming Wei, a Marine Science major, ''Do they not care, or do they expect people like us to sacrifice our time to pick it up and throw it away for them?" Organizer Karolyn Braun remarked, ''When one thinks of a day at the park, they think of fun in the sun, clean beaches and seasonal breezes. However, instead of playing in the waves, we were dodging containers of used washing liquid, scrap metals and old fish netting. In a place that is supposed to smell of salt water, all we could smell was the decomposing trash.” Braun added, “Because countless others have not taken the time to do the little things, like throwing a bottle in a rubbish container, they've built up the trash to a point where a beautiful natural beach looks more like a city street on trash day."

The ASCC participants hope that everyone on Tutuila will do the little things so the next time anyone goes to one of our beach parks, they can actually enjoy it.

WHAT CAN YOU DO?

Marine debris is one of the most frustrating environmental threats because it is easily one of the most preventable, so the solution is in our hands. Consequently, individual action to curb marine debris is just as important as legislative or political edicts, if not more so. Here are some steps you can take to do your part to reduce the amount of marine debris that enters our oceans and waterways:

• Dispose of trash properly. This helps to reduce the amount of trash that washes into waterways.

• Reduce, reuse, and recycle.

• Look for alternative materials or avoid excessive packaging when deciding on purchases.

• Cut the rings of six-pack holders. This lowers the risk of entanglement to marine animals if the holders do make it out to sea.

• Participate in local beach, river, or stream cleanups.

• Educate others about marine debris.

• Get involved locally.

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