“S’pore coastline getting dirtier,” by Shobana Kesava. The Straits Times, 16 Dec 2008. More than 9,750kg of trash cleared during cleanup in September [pdf]

DESPITE public anti-littering campaigns and annual cleanups involving thousands of people, Singapore’s coasts are dirtier than they were five years ago, according to new data.

Over 9,755kg of waste, from plastic bags to refrigerators, was fished off beaches and mangroves during a mammoth cleanup in September, almost 400kg more than in 2007.

The cleanup was organised by International Coastal Cleanup Singapore (ICCS) and was part of a worldwide drive.

Locally, over 2,500 people – from schoolchildren to business executives and civil servants – took part in the event, fanning out to coastal areas from Changi to Jurong.

The results of the cleanup were recently computed by the entirely volunteer-run ICCS.

Lead coordinator N. Sivasothi said he was not surprised by the volume of trash collected.

He described the cleanup as a stopgap measure, saying the only way to cut down on beach-front trash is to encourage conservation.

‘If we use less, that will mean fewer things we need to dispose of. Proper disposal is important so that trash doesn’t end up in drains which wash into the sea,’ he said.

This year, about 2,530 volunteers participated in the Sept 20 cleanup, down from 2,860 last year. Organisers said the numbers were higher when volunteers who worked on other days of the year were included.

The results of the cleanup show trash trends have varied little over the few years, said Mr Sivasothi.

‘It would take an enormous shift in behaviour to change the kind of rubbish we find. I’d be surprised if there was a significant change,’ he said.

Plastic bags, straws and styrofoam have been a constant on shorelines here and abroad for years. Larger items, such as refrigerators and tyres, have also been found, according to organisers.

While the September cleanup shows littering habits remain a problem, volunteers are undeterred.

Kranji Mangrove volunteer Cheong Wei Siong, 20, said he has seen the shoreline become progressively cleaner over the years.

‘I always feel good visiting the mangroves because they are much cleaner, and I played an important role in it,’ he said.

Mr Yasim Abidin, a volunteer who has cleaned the shores for 10 years, said he is not discouraged by the consistently high garbage load.

Every year, the 29-year-old gets 80 children to pair up with Nanyang Polytechnic students to help clean the shoreline. ‘It’s our small contribution to Singapore and hopefully the children will take the message home and into their future,’ he said.

Registration for next year’s International Coastal Cleanup will open in March at the website http://coastalcleanup.nus.edu.sg

skesava@sph.com.sg

Click to read pdf

“New cleanup site: Pandan Mangrove,” by Shobana Kesava. The Straits Times, 16 Dec 2008. [pdf]

Among the peculiar items found at Pandan Mangrove off the West Coast was a muddy toilet cistern, probably washed up by the tides. — PHOTO COURTESY OF KENNETH PINTO

SITUATED off the West Coast, Pandan Mangrove has become the latest addition to the coastline being cleaned up by International Coastal Cleanup Singapore.

Fresh pickings could be the main reason for the unusually high number of bulky items found on just 350m of shoreline. More than the average number of tyres and building materials were found stuck in the mud.

In all, 3,448 pieces of trash were collected by corporate volunteers from Oil Spill Response and East Asia Response Limited (OSRL/EARL) and Wildlife Reserves Singapore – both new to coastal cleanups – and veterans from the Raffles Museum Toddycats of the National University of Singapore, a non-governmental organisation headed by zoologist N. Sivasothi, who coordinates the annual event.

‘We wanted to give them this fresh site, even though they have never done this work before, because they had a great ‘can-do’ spirit and were serious about wanting to do a good job,’ he said.

‘We wanted to cover only a small site because we wanted to minimise the damage to the site,’ said site captain Kelly Ong, 27, a marine biologist.

The volunteers found almost 1,300 plastic bags, 820 food wrappers and more than 440 glass bottles.

‘The most peculiar items found included traffic barrier lights, half of a vacuum cleaner, a rice cooker, a wooden statue of a smiling Buddha, a golf bag and a lot of plastic pipes,’ she said.

A human chain was formed to remove 39 tyres, which easily weighed about 740kg.

Ms Ong hopes this will reduce the places where rainwater can collect, as these can serve as breeding grounds for mosquitos.

Mr Wilson Tan, 28, who headed the OSRL/EARL team, said he had been searching for a way to help his company reduce its carbon footprint.

‘I went online to check if anyone was cleaning the beaches because the footprint is worse if trash is left in the open. It affects the mangroves and the marine life,’ he said.

SHOBANA KESAVA

Note – the volunteers mentioned are Site Captains of Sembawang Beach (Yasim), Kranji mangroves (Wei Siong) and Pandan mangroves (Kelly) and cleanup organiser Wilson.

Shobana Kesava’s second story, “The coast is not clear: tyre and table among trash found” is out in the Straits Times today (her first story appeared in The Sunday Times, a day after the cleanup).

Check ST Online if you have a subscription or buy the paper. Its quite a nice spread across the middle of the page with stalwarts Singapore American School hard at work in Kranj mangroves.

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ICCS2007 on the Chinese newspaper, Lian He Zao Bao.

You can read the original article from Zao Bao using the link (in simplified mandarin). A pdf version will be available soon on the ICCS main website.

A rough translation is coming soon.
Edit:
The rough translation of the article is as follows:

Title: Large increase in volunteers for Coastal Cleanup Day

By Chua Hwee Leng.

Main Article:
Food containers, styrofoam pieces, cigarettes, cigarette butts, beverage bottles, as well as clothing items such as shoes and socks … These are trash collected from Singapore’s shorelines and mangroves.

Last Saturday was the day of the International Coastal Cleanup. Over 2500 volunteers from schools, professional and governmental organisations fan out to 13 shores and mangroves, picking up trash to give the coast line a “make-over”. The places include East Coast park, Pasir Ris beach, Changi Beach, Tampines Beach, Kallang Basin and Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve.

Singapore has since 1992, answered the call to participate in the International Coastal Cleanup.

In charge of coordinating the annual International Coastal Cleanup Singapore (ICCS) activities is Mr Sivasothi, a research officer with the National University of Singapore Raffles Museum of Biodiversity Research. According to his estimate for this year, volunteers are likely to collect more than 8 tons of trash.

10 tons of trash was collected from last year’s ICCS, with the majority of the trash coming from littering; among the top three trash in terms of quantity, styrofoam pieces leads the list with 23279 pieces, making up 25% of all trash. Food containers comes next with 8881 pieces making up 10% followed by 8840 pieces of cigarette and cigarette butts, making up 9.97%.

Even though the total trash load from this year is less than last year’s, Mr Sivasothi attributed the reason as the ICCS is now in its 16th year; the bulky trash from the mangroves have been cleared by volunteers. However, he emphasized that cleanup in the mangroves will have to continue. The coordinating committee estimates that the complete collation of collected data will only be available by October.

Every year, after collating the data from the cleanup, volunteers will submit the data to the government, in line with the actions from other countries.

There are 70 to 100 countries taking part in the annual International Coastal Cleanup. But other than cleaning the beach, participants also sort and record down the trash collected, with the data being submitted to the Ocean Conservancy, an organization under the United Nations, for further analysis, identifying the sources of marine trash in order to formulate strategies to prevent pollution of the ocean.

Mr Sivasothi told the reporter even though no advertisement for ICCS was made on the media, in recent years, ICCS has been attracting the attention of Singaporeans, with more and more people participating in the event, making the coast of this sea-surrounded Garden City cleaner. There were only 1800 volunteers in last year’s event, less than half of this year’s numbers.

In order to accommodate volunteers who had registered, the coordinating committee will be cleaning up the beaches over the next two Saturdays.

Header: Singapore not just has to recycle but reduce trash from source

While the current situation is heartening, Mr Sivasothi deemed a need in improving the communication of Singapore’s ocean protection and water pollution messages.

He says, “Many people still do not know there are marine life in the waters of Singapore, they do know there are sea turtles, dolphins, otters, dugongs and other larger animals, appearing in Singapore’s shores and waters. Some people also do not realize their shopping habits results in large quantity of trash being disposed of. Singapore no longer has any space for landfills. Even though, in the interest of preventing environmental damage, we had build a landfill on the offshore islands, but in the process, we had also sacrificed some coral reefs and mangroves. What we need to do is not just recycling, but also source reduction (of trash).”

The article appeared in a free story in the Sunday Times so you can access it here.

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