When Michael David Loftin walks down the beach, he can’t just ignore a piece of litter; he’s got to pick it up.

That’s what he has in common with over 5,000 volunteers of 808 Cleanups, the nonprofit he co-founded in 2014: “Basically, we can’t stand to just do nothing.” It would be easier to simply shake their heads about how horrible the pollution is, but they feel compelled to take action, he added.

“The big wake-up call for us was the graffiti tagging on hiking trails,” he said, also referring to co-founder Wayde Allen Fishman. It opened up their eyes to litter dumping and the negligent way people treated the environment in general.

This year the nonprofit counted 5,476 volunteers and had organized 1,287 adopt-a-site programs. The adoption program is the core of 808 Cleanups, which provides the necessary tools and support for people to take responsibility for a site — normally a beach or trail — and maintain it weekly.

In the past year, mostly on Oahu, the group collected 70,123 pounds of trash, 31,469 pounds of marine debris and 23,468 pounds of discarded or lost fishing nets. It also disposed of 49,787 square feet of invasive plants, according to 808cleanups.org. The website posts a calendar of cleanup events.

“A lot of people assume we just go out and clean up other people’s messes, but our real goal is to make a lot of what we do now obsolete. If they don’t litter or be careless in the first place, that’s the most effective. Showing a positive example at a lot of different (cleanup) sites, where people talk story, you nip a lot of problems in the bud,” said Loftin, the group’s executive director. Originally from Virginia, he moved to Hawaii in 2006 to work at Sea Life Park and now works in the photovoltaic field.

Everyone has the right to clean and safe beaches and parks, but that entails the responsibility of chipping in, he said. The most critical needs are to mitigate damage caused by big nets discarded by fishing vessels that ensnare marine life, and the vast amount of plastic debris that fish or other creatures ingest, Loftin added. Even if they don’t die from it, what they ingest infects their bloodstream, and when humans catch and eat seafood, it could have a poisonous effect, he said.

“Some people might get burnt out and think, ‘Man, I come back and it’s littered again.’ But if we all take a manageable piece and spread the effort out enough, it really does become easier. We’ve seen that already at some of these sites that were just so beat up, and we just kept at it with a marathon mentality, versus a sprinting mentality. … We take it week by week, month by month, and with patience it does improve and it becomes easier in time.”

A prime example of this occurred in the Kaiwi conservation area, a scenic shoreline encompassing the Makapuu Lighthouse trail and Sandy Beach. For decades groups of young people had been building huge, illegal bonfires at night, largely burning wooden shipping pallets that left nails and staples buried in the sand. Partygoers would throw their empty beer bottles and cans into the fire, leaving “a big mess,” Loftin said. The whole beach would be covered in remnants of coals, ash and nails that beachgoers would step on.

Loftin decided to confront the guilty while the parties were going on and tell them about the purpose of his group. Admitting he has to battle some nerves before making his appeal, “I just go in and am pretty straightforward,” he said. “For the most part, people are pretty respectful because I don’t threaten to shut the party down.”

He tells them they can still have a fire if it’s contained in a grill — “just make it look like you weren’t there at all” at the end of the night, Loftin said. He estimates he talked to about 300 people in the last year, in groups of 10 to 20, and since then the number of pallet bonfires has “basically dropped to zero.”

In the next year 808 Cleanups will promote its adopt-a-site program so people can clean on their own schedule, which makes a bigger impact. To suggest a site to adopt, call 892-3464, or volunteer at one of the sites indicated on a map on the website.

We recently asked readers to help shine a light on the good works of a few true unsung heroes. Readers responded with nominees from divergent walks of island life who share a common desire to help others. Star-Advertiser editors chose five Heroes Next Door who will be highlighted in stories through Sunday.