La Mode Verte
Environmental Awareness Through Media ProductionsArchive for Watercare Harbour Cleanup Trust
Those Who Helped With Plastic Shores: Sustainable Coastlines and Hayden Smith
The first month of filming on ‘Plastic Shores‘, March 2011, was spent in the USA (California, Washington, Missouri, and Hawaii). That particular March was a great month to be in the states researching the problems of marine debris with the San Francisco Green Film Festival, the Ocean Shores Beachcombers’ Fair, and the 5th International Marine Debris Conference all happening. The latter took place in Honolulu Hawaii towards the end of March. It brought together politicians, environmentalists, industry experts, and scientists to discuss what to do about the growing problem of synthetic waste in the world’s oceans. While there we met a host of interesting people, most of whom ended up in our film, including Camden Howitt and Sam Judd from Sustainable Coastlines (above) and Hayden Smith (below) from Waitemata Harbour Cleanup Trust (now the Watercare Harbour Cleanup Trust), all from New Zealand.
We interviewed Sam, Camden, and Hayden on the Honolulu waterfront and they told us the great things they were doing back home in New Zealand raising awareness for the problems of marine plastic pollution. They were bringing the cleanup effort to Hawaii however and took LMV on an impromptu cleanup of Honolulu harbour, a surprisingly dirty body of water, which, if local stories are true, has been known to cause the death of people who have open wounds when swimming there. By the look of the marine debris in the water (below), this is not surprising. The guys found syringes, poison bottles (far below), and every form of plastic you can imagine (bottles, bags, coat-hangers, straws, nurdles, etc.).
You could tell the three were passionate about what they were doing. To come half way around the world and clean litter showed true dedication and we can’t thank them enough for the time they gave us for the interviews and the cleanup (and the beers afterwards). We are only sorry we missed the larger cleanup they helped organise the day after the 5IMDC as we were filming on Big Island with the Hawaii Wildlife Fund.
