It has been raining the whole day. Cold. But a good day to stay home and snug under the blanket. :)
Well, how does waking up early on a weekend to pick and collect thrash sounds to you?
That's what exactly what i did last Sat. Along with about 10-20 of my course mates, we semangatly woke up at bout 7 am in the morning to go pick and collect rubbish. Yes, real (un) smelly rubbish.
We were sentenced to do community service at the Beach of the Ugly Stone (Pantai Batu Buruk) because we actually volunteered to be garbage men and women for a morning. :p
Actually, this is in conjunction with the Ocean Conservancy's International Coastal Cleanup programme that is held worldwide every September. But since, we were having our holis in Sep, so we only did our part in KT last Sat.
Basically, what we had to do was very simple. The coastal cleanup programme does not only involve cleaning up beaches but also other waterways such as lakes, rivers and streams. (but of course you can only clean up one place at a time thats why more volunteers needed so diff ppl can clean up diff area at one time. haha) The aim is to minimized as much land-based thrash as possible winding up in the ocean and a clean ocean is therefore more resilient to the effects of climate change, pollution, overfishing and habitat destruction.
As you all can see, the sun was so kind to us that morning, scorching us, make us more tan and dehydrating us faster. We were divided into two groups cz the beach is so long so one group started cleaning from one point and the other group from another point. My group was supposed to start some 1km from A & W (where we parked our cars) but cz we were burning with enthusiasm, we started collecting right from A & W itself. Actually cz even from that point of the beach, there were already plenty of rubbish.
A smaller group of 4-5 person then had two large plastic bags that we had to drag about to collect our rubbish.
Because of our burning enthusiasm, we stopped at every step and picked rubbish. And we had to record our findings so that they eventually can kp track of everything we found. There were plenty of cigarette butts so initially we went like 'MV (the girl we record down our findings in my grp), 1 cigarette butt. MV another one.' Like that. But after a while, it's very tiring to have to shout to MV all the time, so we accumulated like 10 at one go then only shouted to MV. Which towards the end, you can guessed it, we didn't shout anymore and just threw whatever we found cz the space to record cigarette butts was full also.
By the time we reached our official starting point, everyone felt like we had covered a huge part of the beach which was in real maybe just some 1.5 km stretch. But you really had to try stopping at every step, picking up all the rubbish and thrash people left behind, from tiny tiny one to big big ones under the scorching sun and recording your findings. It just makes you feel like you had done so much.
That was a flatten piece of dno what (likely styrofoam leftovers) i picked from the sand.
Throwing our findings into the large plastic bag which grew heavier and heavier as time passed.
This pack of sack was filled with sand and was 3/4 buried in the sand. We had to dig and dig and finally need a Hercules to pulled that heavy sack out.
We became the MBKTs
Dr. T was seriously very very enthu in collecting thrash and cleaning up the beach. Even while we were resting, he went around and continued picking up thrash and lots of thrash did he picked.
Finding a large plastic water bottle.
Another one. A very common finding. Can you imagine the harmful effects of all these bottles in the sea to the sea habitats? Maybe everyone wanted to leave a message in the bottle or after ppl found their love message, they got so excited and forgot to throw the bottles. @@
Another very common finding were cigarette butts. I think we easily picked up more than 1000 cigarette butts altogether. And sweet wrappers. Abundant of it.
Even underwear and pants were also left behind. It was hanging on this pole. Looked very worn out but we decided to left it where it was just in case it belongs to someone who purposely put it there to hang dry. You never know.
Another common finding - FOOD remnants, tissues and containers. Probably also because A & W is nearby. Major culprit. Very disgusting ok. The chickens may taste good but leaving the bones behind to rot in the sand is very disgusting. You know with food and after few days when they stale and got the smell. Yucks.
Look, Suze so ganas collecting thrash that her slipper broke.
And the slipper became part of the thrash.
Among some of our findings. Dno why got car parts also. I won't be surprised even if we found condoms.
Bottle caps and styrofoams.
Even syringe were not spared.
Tyre and a whole container of rubbish.
Cheers. Someone was kind enough to leave behind some Carlsberg for us.
Got horses. I also want to ride one :p
Our findings.
Act cute betul.. :p
Another act cute.. We are so cute you will nv guess our age. hahaha
With the girl who put us all up to this. Good effort :)
A group pic b4 we can officially call it a day.
Yes, at least part of the mission cz what we did was only a minor effort in keeping our ocean clean. We need continuous cooperation from everyone to keep our beach and waterways clean jz as how we wna keep our city and home clean.
From that day short cleanup, we had picked up sooooo much thrash that people leaves behind. And Beach of the Ugly Stone is not even as popular as Desaru, Port Dickson or Batu Ferringhi so you can imagine how polluted those beaches are. Don't leave your thrash behind thinking MBKT, DBKL, MBJB, whatever (the municipal council people) will come clean up your rubbish cz honestly, i think it's every one of our own responsibility and we can't just depend on them (even tho part of our tax goes to them but well well, we all know kan how Boleh we are).
Some of the other perhaps more amusing findings were diapers and even urine in a bottle. But the common stuff are common. We all know that most of us love to go to the beach, whether it's for a family outing, dating or just de-stressing. Or party on the beach. It's all very fun and cool right? But the next time you go hang out at the beach, don't forget to clear your thrash as you leave. So that if next time i volunteer to be garbage woman again, won't have to bend and pick up so much rubbish with every step i take and mite end up with a spine injury. haha. kidding. Truth is so that ultimately we all do not endangered the ocean ecosystems and wildlife along the way. A little step goes a long way. :D
