My husband and I opened a brand new dive centre Bubbles, in Gozo, Malta on 06 July 2011.  Less than 2 weeks later we organised and participated in our first Dive Against Debris event.  The dive centre team and 4 customers spent an hour in clearing debris in Marsalforn Bay which resulted in 25 kilos of waste being brought to the surface.  We laid the debris ot on a plastic sheet on the sea front so passers-by could see exactly what had found its way into the sea.

The aim of the event was to clear debris but also to raise awareness.  We managed to get some great press coverage in both an online news publication - GozoNews.com and feature on page 2 of the Malta Independent national newspaper.  See link http://www.independent.com.mt/news.asp?newsitemid=129005

Unfortunately one of the local dive centres publicly stated their cynasism about the event and also said that there was no point in doing what we did as "people never learn".  I find that attitude disgraceful, especially from a fellow dive centre owner - but one of the reasons we decided to open a dive centre here was to promote marine conservation - something which there appears to be little of particualrly from that dive centre!

Such was the success of the event that we are organising another one on Saturday 30 July in Marsalforn Bay again.