Hawaii students, Japanese visitors toss ‘genki balls’ into Ala Wai in effort to clean water

HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) - Typically, you shouldn’t throw things in the Ala Wai Canal.

But there are exceptions — especially when it involves cleaning the water.

On Tuesday, dozens of elementary school students and Japanese visitors with the Hawaii HIS Corporation tossed genki balls into the Ala Wai.

Genki balls are made up of microorganisms, molasses soil and rice bran. They help clean up all the sludge in the water.

Dozens of "Genki Balls" were tossed into the Ala Wai Tuesday.

Genki means healthy and vital in Japanese.

“Then we have small fish returning to the area. Also, you can start seeing the bottom, the sand, the original rock once the sludge is gone,” said Maryann Kobayashi, of the Genki Ala Wai Project. “It’s amazing what these microbes do.”

So far, 20,000 genki balls are already at work in the water. The goal is to reach 300,000.

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