altogether now!...1, 2, heave!!!!!

About 325 people, schoolkids and adults, got up really early today to head for Pulau Ubin for their part in the International Coastal Cleanup Singapore 2009.

It was a glorious morning with clear skies and they got to work immediately picking, pulling, tugging, cutting, digging, sweating, huffing, puffing, heaving, hauling, carrying and pushing the trash. This was followed by counting, classifying and weighing the trash items recovered from the approximately 475m of shore covered.

The groups that battled on Chek Jawa were :-

1. Australian International School @ Noordin Beach
2. CHIJ St Nicholas @ CJ Central 2 – results link
3. Agri-Food & Veterinary Authority @CJ Central 3 – results link
4. Pei Hwa Secondary School NPCC cadets @CJ Central 4 – results link
5. Advantest (Singapore) Pte Ltd @ CJ South 4 – results link
6. Girl Guides of Hougang Sec & Changkat Changi Sec @ CJ South 5 – results link
7. Gemalto Pte Ltd @ CJ South 6 – results link
8. Land Transport Authority @ CJ South 7 – results link
9. Independant signups @ CJ South 9 – results link;

The total weight of the items collected= 2.786 tonnes.

This is a very large amount of trash – however it is only a small fraction of the total amount still remaining at Chek Jawa and Noordin which we will tackle in the years to come.

Pulau Ubin’s high trash load was either deposited there in the past and present, or floats in with the tide. As with last year, many fish nets and large plastic drums were seen on the shore but the groups only managed to remove some of them.

See the detailed results from the day’s work at Pulau Ubin and other sites in Singapore at coastalcleanup.nus.edu.sg/results/2009/.

Photos are also online, see pictures by James Koh, pictures by K C Au-Yeong

More news after the second phase of the International Coastal Cleanup on 19 Sept 2009 – this date is the actual date of the global community’s data collecting exercise.

NAFA has shared their photos with us and they are up on Flickr. They worked at Chek Jawa mangroves and the result for that site is on the results page.