The Clubs have decided to put bigger
attention to environmental programs this year. As a kick-off to this
commitment, a Coastal Clean-up was held last July 8, 2017. At 6:30 AM, Clubs’
staff were already gathered in groups ready to scour the shores of Anvaya for
trash. The shoreline view from afar showed a seemingly litter-free beach but we
were able to gather several bags of trash after an hour.
Kick-off. Here’s Raymond, Recreation & Leisure Manager, giving out final instructions for the Clean-up.
There were three groups for the Clean-up. One group headed to the left/western side of the Cove beyond the outfall while the other two headed to the longer eastern shore. I went with the group going to the left/western shore, which is off limits to visitors and guests. Since it isn’t often visited by Clubs landscape maintenance staff, we were expecting it to have stashes of trash and debris up on the shore hidden amongst the low-lying trees.
Trash Full. Even though the stretch that we cleaned up was only about 30m long, we were able to fill up a bag in no time.
Trash Mosaic. These are some of the items I have found on my meticulous investigation of an already ‘cleaned-up’ area: small broken pieces of Styrofoam cups, bits of rope, chips of hard plastics, strains of soft plastics and plenty of lollipop sticks.
White suds. I couldn’t identify what these white stuff are so I will just label them as white suds.
Let
me focus a little bit on the Styrofoam bits I found. These Styrofoam bits came
in small sizes of about 5cm to the smallest Styrofoam circle unit. Now look at
the ‘white suds’ from the ocean. These two look alike! And I have mistakenly,
several times, picked up what I thought were Styrofoam bits only to find out
they were suds since they crumbled with a slight press of my fingers. It made
me wonder if sea creatures eat these suds. It would be heartbreaking if they
mistake the Styrofoam bits as suds, and if these are included by mistake in
their diet, just like how sea turtles mistake transparent plastics for
jellyfish.
Mr.Jimboy. Mr.Jimboy Bueno of the Recreation and
Leisure department led our group in the Clean-up.
Persistence. Here’s a little plant pushing to grow
despite being trapped in that plastic mesh.
A
lot of vendors are thankful for these plastic design which keeps their fruits
bruise-free. It is undeniable that we need such plastic and such design but I
hope a new material will be developed to serve its function. There’s this
research on mushroom technology, I can’t wait for this technology to replace a
lot of plastic materials.
Trash in sand. The shore isn’t the only place where
trash can be found. Sadly, even water carries trash. This picture shows what
seems like an overstretched piece of clothing holding a few kilos of sand. My
powers weren’t enough to haul it up.
Collected
trash.
Here are all the trash we were able to gather to keep that background as neat
and serene as it can possibly be.
Hazardous wastes. We were astonished to find even bulbs
along the shore but glad that we were able to pick these up before its toxic
substances leach into the sea. Mr. Pail is happy as well to keep these
hazardous wastes at bay.
Segregation
Chiefs.
Kudos to the heads of the segregation process! These are Shernan and Chris of
the Maintenance Department. They keep records of the trash the Clubs generate
from which we base our Solid Waste Management programs on.
Here is the total breakdown of the
waste we were able to collect in about an hour-long Coastal Clean-up covering
about 750m and with 76 participants in total.
Wastes Breakdown
Residual
Waste:
146.75 kgs
Biodegradable
Waste:
17.32 kgs
Recyclables
Plastics:
6.12 kgs
Bottles:
2.24 kgs
Cans:
4 pcs
Wheel:
1piece
Special
Waste
Busted
bulbs and lamps: 6 pieces
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