Playing with Trash to Keep the Oceans Clean!

You remember me talking about that beach clean I helped organise here in Alicante, as a part of an environmental initiative hosted by the Volvo Ocean Race (story about the Volvo in Alicante here)? I hinted at there being another reason behind the trash collection than just cleaning up the beach... that the trash had a "higher purpose"! Well, it's time (way past it if you ask me! :p) to reveal said purpose: ART!

"Huh? ART??? In the same sentence as TRASH???  Whaaaaaaat???"

I hear you! But let me explain! There's this group of crazy artist surfer dudes who wanted to do something more for the marine environment that is pretty much their home, so they travel around the world collecting trash that the ocean has dumped back on our beaches (or directly abandoned there by man). With this trash they put together some pretty amazing sculptures (which I will share with you in another post) and show them in exhibits in the hopes of raising awareness for the problem of all that damn trash that's floating around in our oceans. Their name: Skeleton Sea. And they're collaborating with the Volvo Ocean Race this year on a project called Keep The Oceans Clean! At each race stopover port they'll organise a beach clean, then with the trash collected (and more "quality" rubbish previously collect elsewhere) they'll organise a series of workshops during which they will create a sculpture with the help of the local population. And Alicante was their first spot! It's a good thing they did bring all that extra beach rubbish with them, because although we picked up a lot of junk during our beach clean up, most of it wasn't "quality" trash, not of much use for the sculpture...




Not much you can do with cigarette butts and lollipop sticks, huh?

Keep the Oceans Clean! starting with Alicante's Postiguet Beach

For the past month or so I've been helping out as a local contact to organise a beach clean here on Alicante's main beach, the Postiguet, and yesterday was the big day! The event was part of an initiative called Keep The Oceans Clean!, a global environmental campaign organised by the Volvo Ocean Race and a group of artists (who happen to be surfers) called Skeleton Sea. The purpose of this programme is to raise awareness of the problems posed by the long-life trash floating around in our oceans, piling up on our beaches...  A beach clean will be organised in each of the 10 stop-overs of this incredible round-the-world race, hoping to get as much local participation as possible, starting here in Alicante!

Underwater Clean Up in Santa Pola

Well that was interesting! And EXHAUSTING!!! A couple of hours in the sun, on the boat or in the water, are always tiring. Add the trash collecting and no wonder I'm so dead!

I got up at very early o'clock this morning, and zipped along the coast to the other end of the Alicante Bay to Santa Pola, to join in the 1st annual clean up organised by ANTHIAS, the dive club I've been going out with this summer, for "Clean Up Your World Day". 10 conscientious divers answered the call. We got our equipment ready as quickly as possible, piled it in the boat, and got the general instructions for the day's work.

 Our target:

the breakwater protecting Santa Pola's harbour, favourite haunt of local amateur fishermen.

The A-Team gets geared up to start on the first section:

They're off!

Those of us on the boat (B-Team) watch them bobbing up and down between the seabed and the surface, while the fishermen look on wondering what these crazy people are up to.

While filling up several trash bags with cans, juice boxes, plastic bags (by far the big winner), fishing lines, our friends occasionally bring us back some of the most random objects, way to big to fit in a bag!

abandoned fishing gear never really stops fishing! :s

du-dun, du-dun... (cue Jaws theme)

it was a plastic barnacle-covered table top!

would anyone like half a chair?

Halfway down the line we switch places. A comes up for some sun, B jumps in the water!

Main problem with this clean up? Crappy visibility!!!

Can't see much, can you? The bottom is all silt, so it finds itself easily in suspension in the water column (one good kick with the flippers and you're blind!). You have to get really close to things to be able to see them at all...

Quite disturbing!!!

Even looking up it's hard to make out the boat!

While we were doing our watery part, a few others worked along the rocks, braving the wrath of the fishermen who didn't like being interrupted, but who couldn't be bothered to clean up after themselves! grrrr....

I don't know what the final tally is, but we brought up a lot of shit! Hopefully next year more people will join in.

And now I'm turning in early... have to get up at bloody early o'clock again to go hiking! I must be crazy... :p