As part of our commitment to a clean environment and Project Awares September 'Dive Against Debris' month, we took a team of our Divemasters in training, Divemasters and Instructors to a local beach area on Utila on Monday 29th September for a clean up.

With a team of 11 volunteers split into groups of 3 we managed to collect 30 bags of trash between 1-2 hours that weighed a total of 301kg/660lbs and was comprised mainly of plastics, bottle caps and miscellaneous debris.  Protective gloves were used to collect the trash and also collanders were used to sift for smaller items of debris such as plastic bottle caps and monofilament line that can be hazardous to marine life.

The clean up was co-ordinated by our resident marine biologist and PADI IDC Staff/Tec Instructor CJ Howarth and marine biologist PADI MSDT Jemma Aitken who recorded the data for submission to Project Aware.

At Utila Dive Centre we organize monthly clean-up's as part of our Divemaster program and professional training and also integrate the CoralWatch reef monitoring into our Divemaster internships and are also a 100% AWARE supporter.

We'd like to thank all our volunteers who braved the afternoon sun and hot temperatures and as a gesture of our appreciation we have put on a special night dive for them this Wednesday 1st October at Utila Dive Centre as a thank you and a great way to start the month!