The opening day of AWARE week conveniently coincided with World Clean-up Day; both movements aiming to create awareness of pollution both on land and in our oceans and to harness local communities to come together and take-action.

Divers Down kicked off AWARE week with a Dive Against Debris at the popular Umm Al Suqeim Public Beach in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. This beach sees thousands of visitors a week; beachgoers, surfers and tourists all making the most of the scenic beach view with the iconic Burj Al Arab Hotel in the background.

The day started bright and early with a beach clean-up organised by XDubai. Joining XDubai were more than 100 volunteers including schoolchildren, conservationists, and company representatives. Trash collected from the beach was then sorted and collected by the Dubai Municipality for recycling. Towards the end of the beach clean-up, it was then our turn to take the clean-up into the water!

We had around 30 people join us for the event from junior open water divers to master scuba divers and instructors. Divers were split into five teams, briefed and given an area to clear and supplied with a dedicated surface support. The energy from the beach clean-up spilled over onto our divers, all of them raring to get started. During the dive we also had the support of SUP Clean Up UAE and members of the Dubai Voluntary Diving Team. They were on hand to clear debris from the surface and ferry larger debris items to shore. This came in

After the dives, the debris was brought back to shore, separated and reported. In total we removed over 450 items from only the North side of the beach. The majority of the debris was plastic items including cigarette filters, swim goggles, sunglasses and bottles. Over 40 metal aluminium cans were found, the largest I have ever recorded from one event.

It is always astonishing to see divers and non-divers disbelieve in the amount of debris that can be found in the sea. For the majority of people marine debris is truly ‘out of sight, out of mind’. By conducting Dive Against Debris events in public spaces we prove that the issue is very real and happens in our own local area.