Ocean Divers cleans up Long Beach.

On Saturday, 23 July Ocean Divers along with Hidden Depths dive centreorganised and conducted a beach cleanup along the southern portion of Long Beach on KohLanta. We had decided to start an effort to cleanup the beaches during the low season here in KohLanta. The beaches tend to get far more debris washing up onto them due to the shift of the wind and waves during this time of year. Much of the rubbish that washes up is floating in the Andaman Sea and constantly shifting with the wind, waves and tides from place to place.

Our goal was to remove as much marine debris as we could without creating any more refuse and recycling everything possible. We used bins and heavy duty bags that are reusable to bring all plastic and glass bottles to the recycling centre, and the rubbish to a collection point on the island.

We collected approximately 180 kilograms of marine debris with at least 80% being plastics. The majority of the rest consisted of polystyrene and glass bottles as well as pieces of rope and netting/fish traps. It was great to get that stuff off the beach and prevent it from going back into our beautiful sea! All data was collected and submitted to the Project AWARE marine debris database.

All of the low season staff from both of our dive centres were involved in the cleanup and we are already planning another beach cleanup in a new location and plan to get more people involved from other dive centres and resorts around the island.

Thanks to all involved for making a difference!