Coastal Cleanup @ Sembawang Park
Over the past few years, the world has woken up to horrifying headlines about sea life that has unfortunately died due to consuming or being trapped by the plastic waste that we throw in the oceans. When our garbage washes up on coastlines, it gives us an opportunity to remove it before the tide washes it back out. Removing plastic that we find on the beach guarantees that marine wildlife won’t come into contact with it and perhaps find itself imperilled in some way or another.
One of the beautiful things about being part of coastal clean-ups is that you get the opportunity to dispose of the waste you find, the right way. This allows many recyclable and compostable items to find their way to the landfill where they can properly break down.
Animals do not know that a shiny candy wrapper is not meant to be eaten. It can easily be mistaken as a fish or piece of kelp. If ingested our plastic waste can cause harm. However, plastic waste can cause injury even if it is not ingested, creatures have been reported having straws stuck in their noses, or head stuck in plastic bottle rings. Last year a viral video took over the internet of a sea turtle with a straw stuck in its nose but no one knew exactly how the straw got there but it defiantly was neither pleasant nor easy to remove. There are ways to prevent this from happening to our ocean creatures. By keeping this environment trash free we help protect and preserve marine life. We would like to thank concerned participants from Schneider Electric and Nanyang Junior College for joining us in this initiative.
We are protectors of the environment and the life it sustains. Keeping our earth as well as the oceans clean of plastic is a great way to teach the others about the importance of having a clean earth freed up from scattered plastic waste. The easiest way to do this is to simply pick it up!