Clean Up Day
Sunday 22nd July: Clean up the beach day
Venue: Nim Shue Wan
Time: 9am-12pm with food afterwards
What a fantastic event. Full credit must go to Tracey Read who really did a marvellous job of organising this event. And of course to all the volunteers who worked really really hard. See Traceys write up and photos that on the DB forum and read some of the comments people have made by looking at http://www.discoverybayforum.com/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.pl?board=others;action=display;num=1185157496
Patrick also took lots of photos- you can see these at: http://flickr.com/photos/desloge/sets/72157600947936182/
One small correction to Tracey’s write up is that it was more like 1500kg (or more) of rubbish! That’s a lot of pollution removed from a beautiful natural habitat. Down the other end was a bed of glass and I think there will be still more work to be done in that area on the next clean up day so don’t worry that there won’t be enough to do next time! Although there probably won’t be quite that same weight again- there was rubbish collected on Sunday that had been there for years. It was nice to see even the rubbish hanging in the trees removed thanks to some thorough cleaners!
In any case it will be interesting to see how long it lasts…. We are hoping to have another clean up day on October 6th. Time of day to be advised. I will let you know a bit closer to the time. We envisage that this time with the weather not quite so hot we can enjoy the beach afterwards with a bbq and band perhaps.
In the meantime we are forming a small team to organise the next one (Tracey (team leader), Denise and myself) and could do with another main player or two and maybe half a dozen volunteers for specific tasks on the day. Please let me know if you are able to help.
We also have things we want to improve for next time and some things we’d like to do differently. If you also have any thoughts or ideas please email Tracey tlread@gmail.com , Denise denisedsw@netvigator.com or me nickandkate@netvigator.com and we will get started on putting our ideas together. If you know of interested sponsors who may like to donate prizes on the day that would also be great! We look forward to having the schools involved also.
A big thankyou to the sponsors:
Hemingway’s for generously providing lunch and drinks to the participants. It was delicious!! Plus they also had a prize for a dinner for 4 at Hemingway’s!
Ecovision for organisational support, the banner and Haviannas jandals/thongs
Eclipse- (ie Mc Sorleys and I Caramba) for 6 x $100 vouchers
ParknShop for 4 sets of Ecover cleaning products
The Beer Bay: 4 bottles of wine
Hoi Yu for two large water bottles
Discovery Bay Medical Centre for First Aid kits
A big thankyou to HKR and City Management for the help and staff. Also thanks to HKR, residents club and marina club for drinks, glasses, and the rubbish boat for the far end of the beach
Swan and all their staff to lift those heavy bags and get them to the skips.
The Marine Department who were scooping up the rubbish from the water.
The Food, Environment and Hygiene department for supplying all the cleaning equipment, bags, brooms and some workers on the day as well!…..
I think the turnout was superb especially with so many people away- we are expecting an even bigger event next time. Should be great fun.
Look forward to seeing you at the next one.
Cheers,
Kate Wade
P.S. One thing we tried to accomplish this time was to encourage people to bring their own water bottles and we tried to discourage the use of disposable water bottles by providing jugs of water and actual glasses (thanks to the Marina club). There is an interesting article in the National Geographic’s Green Guide http://www.thegreenguide.com/doc/121/bottle about the problems with bottled water
P.P.S If you are not already a member of DB Green and would like to join please email me at register@dbgreen.org and you will receive any emails and news from us. And it’s free!