On September 16, 2017, hundreds and thousands of volunteers in more than 100 countries participated in Ocean Conservancy’s 32nd International Coastal Cleanup (ICC)—the world’s largest single-day volunteer effort to remove trash from local beaches and waterways. Nearly 12 million people have taken part in over 6,000 events since ICC first cleaned up a single beach in Texas in 1986.
Hong Kong Cleanup Challenge 2017
Registration is OPEN from NOW to December 1st for The Hong Kong Cleanup Challenge—the region’s largest environmental volunteer event, now in its 17th year. We have been the proud official country leader for the ICC in Hong Kong since 2003. Last year we engaged over 80,000 participants, and we’re hoping to break that record again in 2017 with your support! Participation is easy: choose a team (of friends, colleagues, family, classmates, community group), a date, and a location for your cleanup, and complete the registration form below. Once your team is registered, you will be invited to a briefing to meet other teams and to learn about having a safe, fun and successful cleanup.
Team HKTDC’s 37 volunteers picked up hundreds of kgs of trash from Big Wave Bay, Hong Kong (Credit/HKCleanup Facebook)
Volunteers have walked enough miles to go around the moon twice; collected enough balloons to lift a 2,200-pound walrus; and picked up drink cans weighing as much as a Jeep. In 2015 alone, more than 800,000 volunteers worldwide removed eight million kilograms (18 million pounds) of trash—equivalent to 100 Boeing 737s—from coastlines around the world.
A snapshot of ocean trash impact
500 million straws are used and thrown away every day in the US alone (Credit/Ocean Conservancy)
Items are recorded in Ocean Conservancy’s free Clean Swell app, which records every piece of trash picked up. The data instantaneously uploads to the Ocean Trash Index. This Index is the world’s largest item-by-item, location-by-location marine trash database and is delivered to policymakers and leaders to help them create solutions to this global problem.
From the Hawaiian islands to the Great Lakes; from Latin America to Hong Kong and everywhere in between; the International Coastal Cleanup represents a truly global movement for trash-free seas.
—Janis Searles Jones, Ocean Conservancy CEO
This year, however, ocean cleanup took on a whole new meaning following the damage caused by Hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria, and multiple typhoons in southeast Asia.
How natural disasters exacerbate the problem
Hurricane Harvey left record amounts of debris behind (Credit/Matt Rourke, AP)
The southeastern United States and Caribbean islands are faced with mountains of debris that must be disposed of quickly to prevent the spread of disease. Cleanup regulations have been lifted to allow for this, but there has been little time to separate the garbage. Building materials, large appliances, electronics and hazardous waste mix with potentially recyclable items ruined by water, leaving them as soggy garbage fit only for landfill.
It took a year to clean up the debris after Hurricane Katrina in 2005, and it’s estimated that the 2011 earthquake-triggered tsunami in Japan washed 20 million tonnes of debris into the sea—much of which may never be recovered.
Record-breaking Challenge weekend
HK Cleanup’s Team Bank of America’s 115 volunteers picked up 720kg of trash (Credit/HK Cleanup)
On the other side of the globe, Hong Kong experienced the ocean pollution aftermath of a shipping collision, which caused over 1,000 tonnes of palm oil to wash ashore the city’s beaches, and two back-to-back typhoons, which left behind piles of rubbish over the 800 kilometres of coastline.
Hong Kong Cleanup is the official coordinator of the cleanup movement on behalf of Ocean Conservancy’s International Coastal Cleanup. The HK Cleanup Challenge kicked off its 17th year of rallying an army of volunteers to tackle the growing emergency with a record-breaking first weekend on September 16th and 17th.
The Challenge—organised by Ecozine and co-organised by The Nature Conservancy—takes place every year between September and December across beaches, country trails and urban areas throughout Hong Kong, and coincides with the countdown to the Let’s Do It! World Cleanup Day on September 15, 2018. Lisa Christensen, Founder and CEO of HK Cleanup and Let’s Do It! HK leader says she’s inspired by all the people working together to solve the monumental crisis of cleaning up the oceans and coastlines.
Maybe even more importantly, we’re also working towards ultimately stopping the trash upstream by reducing single-use plastic, collecting data, and working on science-based solutions.
Data analysed for impact
In the past, HK Cleanup volunteers have found a prosthetic leg, a taxi door and a fridge (Credit/Ocean Observancy)
Ocean Conservancy will put together the 2017 ICC data sent in from partner organisations and release a report on the global impact of the cleanup in early 2018. To see the results of the 2016 International Coastal Cleanup, see the full report here.
The Ocean Conservancy, ICC and HK Cleanup are working to educate citizens about social and environmental issues, but they can’t do it alone. Keeping trash out of the ocean and off land requires a massive change in consumer habits—something that we are conscious of every single day and not just on beach cleanup days. Over 220 million pounds (100 million kilograms) of trash have been picked up over the last 32 years.
We just need to stop putting it there in the first place.
“Become a voice for the ocean”
To kick start your change, register a team with the Ocean Conservancy’s ICC or book HK Cleanup to manage a corporate event. Email Hong Kong Cleanup or go to its website for more information.
Midway: A Message from the Gyre is a short film by photographer Chris Jordan about this environmental tragedy that is affecting even the remotest islands on earth. He asks: “Do we have the courage to face the realities of our time? And allow ourselves to feel deeply enough to transform ourselves?”
Written By: Adriane Rysz