Coastal cleanup

Helped out in a cleanup workshop for abt 20 ppl...from a certain company...who'll be leading a coastal cleanup this coming fri...at Sungei Buloh Nature Reserve...

I'm definitely not an expert in this but have participated in the International Coastal Cleanup last year with my Sri Lanka YEP teammates...

Here r some photos of wat we did...

First...it's a briefing by Hang Chong...one of my Sri Lanka YEP leader...also from the Nature Soc of S'pore...
A brief history of the coastal cleanup which started only abt 10 years ago locally...initially carried out on the beach only...but now also in the mangrove swamp...


Tools that r needed for the cleanup...


Proceed to the cleanup area...


Another briefing...how to use the data collection card...


How do u get down to the cleanup area??!


Dead horse-shoe crab...leave them alone...they part of the nature


Hang chong couldn't resist telling the participants more abt the horse-shoe crab...


A small pile of food wrappers n plastic bags...


How the cleanup is carried out...

One person will hold on to the trash bag, another 2-3 with gloves on will pick up the trash...then one person will record the type of trash collected e.g. food wrapper...

A big drum...leave it alone...to be handled by park rangers


Trash that are collected are brought out and weighed...b4 disposing into the dumpster..


Hang Chong's nature talk again...hehe...


Although we did the clean up for abt half an hour only...a total of 32kg of trash was collected...which includes hundreds of food wrappers, straws, drink bottles, glass bits, styrofoam bits...but excludes a car seat!!!

Take home msg...

All this trash that ends up in the sea...may end up in the stomach of the marine life...and starve them to death...
U can help save them by minimizing usage of disposable items such as plastic bags (mimics favorite food of the leatherback turtle), styrofoams (breaks up and gets eaten by fishes) etc...