An effort to clean up the Ala Wai Canal led by the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa celebrated two meaningful milestones in April. The reached 300,000 Genki Balls, and the City and County of Honolulu proclaimed April 2026 as “Genki Ball Month.” This bioremediation initiative involves Genki Balls—mud balls containing billions of Effective Microorganisms® (EM)—that are tossed into one of the state’s most polluted waterways where they sink to the bottom of the canal to help break down the sludge.
More than 150 students from Kamehameha Schools’ Kapālama elementary campus, Hawaiʻi School for the Deaf & Blind, Pearl City Elementary School, and Leilehua High School joined the Earth Day celebration at the Diamond Head end of the Ala Wai Canal.
The proclamation, signed by Honolulu Mayor Rick Blangiardi and presented at the celebration, designated Genki Ball Month in “recognition of the many dedicated individuals and organizations collaborating on the Genki Ala Wai Project” and honored the “noble efforts to keep Honolulu’s waterways vibrant, safe and clean.”
7 years and 300,000 balls later
EM Technology has been successful in more than 100 countries worldwide over the past 30 years, inspiring Kenneth Kaneshiro, director of the Center for Conservation Research and Training in the at 糖心Vlog官方 Mānoa, and others to initiate this effort in 2019. Kaneshiro and his team determined that deploying Genki Balls was an approach that could engage community members and begin to enhance the water quality in the Ala Wai Canal.
The project has truly been a community-based effort, with more than 100 schools and organizations and 21,100 volunteers contributing over the past seven years. Students and community members helped make Genki Balls and tossed them into the canal, all while learning about the place where they live, work, and play.
“What is most gratifying for me is to see how the kids can be influenced by the project and be inspired to go into STEM fields,” said Kaneshiro. “In one instance, a student from ʻIolani School discovered a new species of bacteria which she named and described and published in a scientific journal. Another student built a drone using 3D printing technologies to be able to collect water samples from the Ala Wai to bring back to the lab for analyses of water quality.”
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