Brunei joins international beach clean up

THE ENVIRONMENTAL non-governmental organisation Beach Bunch yesterday joined the observance of the worldwide coastal clean-up to underscore the need for environmental education for the public to preserve the Sultanate's shores and its ecosystems.

Alan Tan, co-founder of Beach Bunch and the country coordinator for yesterday's clean up at Jerudong Beach said, "Basically what we got from today's event is we know that its all about education".

"It all starts from home, if you learn to reduce your waste at home then we don't have to deal with so much waste in our environment, it's all interconnected and linked," he told The Brunei Times.

Speaking about the international clean-up annually organised by Ocean Conservancy, Alan said that the Beach Bunch felt "very proud to put Brunei on the bandwagon, to show them that we are serious about our environment".

"But of course there is still a portion of the community in Brunei that we need to get to jump on the bandwagon with us, so to speak, to get them to be more green, and of course it all comes down to education."

Alan said that the NGO has already mapped out their plans for a "fruitful" next year, which he stressed would focus on awareness and environmental education to the public, "to show them what has been done, what is going to be done, and what needs to be done from every individual".

" Before we can look at saving the world, we need to look at our own backyard to see what we are doing. And a lot of it comes down to what we practice daily," he added.

Some 150 volunteers from Telisai Primary School, Raja Isteri Girls High School (STPRI), Universiti Brunei Darussalam, Institut Teknologi Brunei, International School Brunei, Jerudong International School, AsiaInc and Yayasan Sultan Haji Hassanal Bolkiah Foundation joined in the clean up.

A total of 418.5 kilogrammes of waste were collected, out of which 100 kgs were plastic, one and a half kgs of aluminium and 317 kgs of non-recyclable waste.

Alan related that much of the waste collected, aside from general rubbish, were fishing nets and tyres.

He said one fishnet buried under the sand, which took "a lot of effort" to unearth weighed over 50 kgs, and had "quite a bit of wildlife caught in the nets fish, turtles, crabs".

"We had to leave a big caterpillar tyre there. We couldn't move it, we even tried using a pick up truck to pull it out and there was no way."

Alan said next year for the 27th International Coastal Clean-up, the group is hoping to hold three in Tutong, Belait and here.

The international campaign, which has reached its 26th year, has attracted some nine million volunteers worldwide.

Spanning some 150 countries and locations, the global initiative can achieve a clean up of about 145 million pounds of waste from shores of lakes, streams, rivers and the ocean in one day each year the Ocean Conservancy website read.

The Brunei Times