Eco warriors Unfazed by Gloomy Weather at Pandan Mangrove!

Dark, cloudy sky and a light drizzle did not deter 84 volunteers from springing into cleanup action at Pandan Mangrove!

This year’s warriors include veteran groups – Raffles Museum Toddycats, NUS Biodiversity Crew, Wildlife Reserves Singapore (WRS) plus two new organisations to the site – EARTHlink NTU and FMC Technologies.

As this remnant strip of mangrove in south-west Singapore is a fragile habitat, we sub-divided the site this year into 4 different sectors for the respective organisations to tackle, so as to minimise impact on the mangrove and to allow for a wider area to be combed.

Plastic bags, food containers and plastic beverage bottles made up the majority of items collected. Whilst there were much less illegally dumped trash like tyres and household appliances this time, we still found several large PVC plastic pipes, long wires and even abandoned mattresses and pillows!

Gorgeously muddy legs and booties! Photo by Amanda Tan.

Two young little heroes of the WRS team brought much joy and energy to the site with their enthusiasm and readiness to help in any way they could – certainly an inspiring sight.

Photo by Desmond Ling (WRS).

NUS and Raffles Museum group this year was small, but the 10 folks gave their all by treading deep into the mud to wipe out any trash in sight! Special thanks to Meryl Theng who offered to help as organiser for the group at the 11th hour and took everything in stride. New friendships were built and we certainly had a great workout!

NUS team – Top left: Amanda, Yi Jun, Meryl, Shiv, Wei Yu, Venus and Thiri.
Bottom left: Aloysius, Nasrul, Rini, Kelly. Photo by Amanda Tan.

A big thank you to all organisers who made this cleanup a success and we certainly look forward to your participation next year!

Photo by Desmond Ling (WRS).