A lovely morning sun welcomed us at Changi Beach this morning when we visited NTU Earthlink at the cleanup site at Changi Beach 2!
NTU participants staggered out of the bus after an arduous journey from the far west of Singapore where their campus is situated and everyone seemed sluggish. But the briefing prepped everyone and they began to get energised!
The scattered around their site to start beach combing for trash. Numerous cigarette butts were encountered and this number turned out to be 4,458 after collating! Jokes were made about ICCS actually International Cigarette Cleanup Singapore
Other common trash found there were food wrappers and containers, straws, caps and lids. All of this points to shoreline activities as the greatest source of pollution (see results here)
It was hard work but everyone kept up good cheer. And there were interesting finds – two fish traps of about 1 metre long! Luckily, these trap were empty and we bore them away before they could cause any damage to the marine environment. Peculiar items that turned up were candles, a bar of soup and a shaving blade.
A dead horseshoe crab on the beach was examined curiously – they were quite surprised to learn that the blood of this creature is blue and has medicinal uses.
Everyone was having so much fun that they forgot about time. After 90 minutes though, we gathered to weigh the trash, Many of the Earthlink volunteers wanted to continue, remarking that the cleanup was over so quickly!
21 kg of trash (excluding the fish traps) were collected along this 500m stretch of coastline within 90 mins and the data revealed a dominance of cigarette butts!
We were certainly glad to witness how such detailed work is conducted with such positive spirits amongst the participants!
News from the International Coastal Cleanup Singapore 