International Coastal Cleanup: Taking Action For The Ocean

The Long Run members and supporters have announced plans to participate in this year’s International Coastal Cleanup Day.

In Indonesia, Nikoi Island will have their first coastal cleanup on the east coast of Bintan with the support of local communities. The island is planning the beach cleanup on 18th of September, and will also have other activities such as games for kids and recycling.

 

In Tanzania, Chumbe Island Coral Park together with the Zanzibar student’s network, ZANREC and local community at Tunguu, will work together to clean Kibele beach and mangroves areas. The activity is open to all.

 

In Kenya, The Long Run supporter Ocean Sole is partnering with Watamu Marine Association and Kenya Wildlife Service  for the cleanup. Watamu Marine Association and Ocean Sole will be coordinating the Kenya coast cleanup for the fourth year running, along the entire coast of Kenya from Kiunga in the north to Msambweni in the south. The wildlife service will be coordinating clean ups in the Marine Protected Areas. Together, they aim to work with more than 50 local community groups, schools, conservation groups and other organisations and mobilise up to 5,000 volunteers to help clean all of Kenya’s beaches.

 

The  International Coastal Cleanup Day, the world’s largest volunteer effort for the ocean that helps remove trash from the world’s beaches and waterways, takes place yearly on the 17th of September. Spearheaded by the Ocean Conservancy, this effort has been going on for 30 years now.

 

Ocean trash is a serious pollution problem affecting the health of people, wildlife and local economies. Trash compromises the health of humans, wildlife and the livelihoods that depend on a healthy ocean; threatens tourism and recreation, and the critical dollars they add to local economies; complicates shipping and transportation by causing navigation hazards; and generates steep bills for retrieval and removal, the Ocean Conservancy says.

 

More than 18 million pounds of trash was collected by nearly 800,000 volunteers during the 2015 International Coastal Cleanup, data collected during the 2015 International Coastal Cleanup shows. Over 30 years, more than 225 million items of trash have been logged and removed from beaches and waterways.

 

Some of the more unusual items found in the September 2015 Cleanup include: 97 TV sets, 28 refrigerators, 39 toilets and 54 bicycles. Plastic debris remains a growing concern in the marine environment, and the top five most commonly collected items are cigarette butts, plastic beverage bottles, food wrappers, plastic bottle caps and plastic straws, respectively. All are forms of plastic debris.

 

The report is available for download here.

 

See this map to find a cleanup location near you. 

 

Download Clean Swell, the Ocean Conservancy’s mobile data collection app. Use it to easily record each item of trash you collect. The data you collect will instantaneously upload to Ocean Conservancy’s global ocean trash database and held deliver a global snapshot of ocean trash, providing researchers and policy-makers insight to inform solutions.

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