Koh Tao Beach Clean-Up

 On the 16th of September 2015, The Sairee Cottage Diving Project AWARE Eco team got together and implemented a simple plan to clean up a variety of beaches around the island of Koh Tao, Thailand.

 The Project AWARE Eco team decided to clean 3 different beaches at once. The locations chosen were Hin Wong Bay, located on the East side of Koh Tao and one of the beaches that receives the least amount of attention due to the difficulties in getting to the bay.

 My personal team were in charge of cleaning the Beach at Mae Haad, this is where all of the ferries arrive to drop all visitors to the island, it is one of the dirtiest areas in Koh Tao and takes the most amount of time to clean. There are many PADI Dive Schools around this area but the sheer volume of debris makes it almost impossible to constantly maintain this beach.

 The final area we cleared was Chalok Bay, located towards the South West of the Island, Chalok is a quieter area and therefore is generally in very good condition, however we hadn’t been there in a while so we felt it was about time to scope it out. I am happy to report that Chalok was a very clean beach and it made it difficult for our team to get more than 2 bags of garbage.

 The weather was absolutely abhorrent, we originally intended to do a #DiveAgainstDebris reef clean-up as well but the conditions would not allow for it. We decided, in true PADI spirit that the rain and wind would not deter us from our mission so we decided upon a Multi-Beach Cleanup.

In total from the three locations our team was able to collect over 20 bin bags full of garbage, most of which coming from Mae Haad. Despite the poor weather, the Project AWARE Eco teams were always in high spirits and even recruited the help from some of the local population as well. One lady was kind enough to offer my team free water during our clean up in support of our actions.

 The majority of collected waste was plastic based, my team alone collected 6 bags of plastic materials. Other materials collected included glass, cigarette ends, rope, polystyrene and scrap metal one of my members even found a toy gun.

 We estimate that around 70% of our debris mass was Plastic based, with cigarette ends a close second (obviously cigarette ends weigh a lot less).

 I would like to thank everyone that got involved for their devout help in highly undesirable conditions. Looking forward to our next Sairee Cottage DivingProject AWARE Eco Team mission. For details please check our Eco Facebook Page

Felix Keene
PADI Master Instructor #303763
Sairee Cottage Diving, Koh Tao, Thailand