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Eco News - Clean Up The World

Back in 2014 Seychelles pledged to join the annual Clean up the world campaign.

This year’s theme was ‘YES- We can beat plastic pollution!’

The theme was almost certainly inspired by the successful ban in plastic straws back this year and the plastic straw ban back in 2917.  There has certainly been a greater worldwide focus on pollution in the Ocean and Coastal regions.  Earlier in the year there was also a huge clean up of the outer islands including the Aldabra Atol.

 

We were of course, very keen to join the campaign, so volunteered to take part in the clean ups. 

Sybille also spoke at the opening of the campaign on Praslin representing both the SHTA and of course Les Lauiers Eco Hotel & Restaurant. 

Our team were designated an area around La Pointe on the South side of the island. 

All teams participating in the clean ups were required to record a composition of the waste collected to highlight the severity of the problem around the country.

At the end of our 2 hour clean up, we sorted the waste into various different categories. Soft Plastic, Glass, Metal, Rubber and Mixed Materials. 

25kg Soft Plastic (mostly water and fizzy drink bottles)
86kg glass (again mainly bottles)
28kg metal
4kg rubber (plus tyres)
58kg mixed materials

This means our team of 19 collected an astounding 201kg of waste in just 2 hours.

It was disappointing to discover so many glass bottles around, particularly when Glass bottles of drinks made locally, including tonic water, seybrew, slow turtle cider, Bavaria beer can all be collected and reused and 2 rupees are given per bottle.

Plastic bottles undoubtedly made up the largest volume of waste we collected.

 

It was great to be involved in such an important cause, despite the volume of waste we collected being shocking!  We hope that the campaign helped to bring awareness to the scale of the problem.

 

It is the responsibility of all of us to keep our islands clean. Which is why it was so important for us to be involved with the project.