If you have only one day-off every week, what would you do on your day break? Would you arrange a packed schedule of entertainment activities, or resting in bed to recharge yourself? Working in Hong Kong for over 17 years, a Filipino domestic helper, Angelina, chose to go beach cleaning on her Sunday with the Beyond Plastic team. They target beaches in different areas of Hong Kong, in particular those with severe coastal pollution problems. Their mission is to pick up every single piece of disposed plastic tableware, foam plastic, fish nets, etc. so that they would not remain a threat to the environment.
A mother of four, Angelina sees her beach cleaning efforts worth the water fun sacrifice, for the positive changes she will bring to the ecosystem and oceans. “Hong Kong is a beautiful city, with breathtaking countryside and beaches. Plastic pollution is such a terrible sight. Hope everyone can go plastics-free from the source, and save the Earth for our next generation.”
60 bags of garbage in 1.5 hours, “Not even a quarter of the whole”
On a Sunday reaching 33°C, Angelina and about 20 volunteers of Beyond Plastic traveled all the way long from the city, to Sam Pak Wan on the Discovery Bay. After miles of roads and water miles in the sea, they reached this popular vacation spot with a shocking “welcome” by lots of garbage.
A broken plastic fork, plastic bottles, food wraps, takeaway foam plastic boxes and lids scattered at every corner of the beach. Some garbage was twisted into the fishing net. The biggest challenge of all was to deal with the “big boss”, foam plastic, which could be so fragile that if one failed to handle it with extra caution, it broke into pieces and carried away randomly to different places by wind. “Microplastics are everywhere, the beach could be highly polluted. Our cleaning work hasn’t even covered a quarter of the garbage found on the beach.”
60 black bags of plastic garbage would be passed to the Government body for their handling. The volunteering team told Greenpeace that they experienced handling over 4 tonnes of garbage on Lantau, loading up to 5 garbage trucks. For some spots like Ma Shi Chau, it took the team at least two full days for the clean-up.
A “United Nations” Beach Cleaning Team
Angelina has been consistent on reducing plastics from its source. Joining the beach cleaning team include her friend, Camila. What they do truly explain how much they care about minimizing the use of plastics: they bring their lunch along with reusable tableware such as chopsticks, drinking bottles, and food containers. Their actions have been motivating the families they are serving to join their plastic-free initiatives. “At work, I keep recycling as my habit and I bring my own bags for shopping. My employer is happy to know I go beach cleaning on Sundays and feel proud of me.”
Beyond Plastic was founded by Stefano, an Italian advocator in 2019. It hosts one or two beach cleaning activities every month, and has been organizing over 40 cleaning events as of now, with 60 to 100 active members. In addition to Hong Kong people, participants are from different parts of the world such as Iran, Germany, and Indonesia. They build tents under tree shadows, sharing their joyous moments of chats and food with each other. Beach cleaning is more than a sweating labor task, it is a get-together of like-minded fellows across regions, races and socioeconomic status. They are living like a big family bounded tightly together, sharing difficulties in life and protecting their one unique family, the Earth.
Motivating more people for the plastic-free initiatives
One big wave, one luxurious party, and they bring to the Earth lots of plastic garbage, technically ruining the efforts of the team. Is beach cleaning a task in vain? “It’s true. We won’t be able to clean up all the garbage from the whole beach at once, sooner or later, another pile of garbage will come.” Angelina and the volunteering team are role models themselves, a walking example illustrating the outcomes of our plastic-based entertainment activities. It would require the Earth to pay for it.
“We want to show to the passers-by: You all can join us any time you like. Yes, there would be somebody who cares less, and these are exactly the ones we would like to motivate to join our plastic-free initiatives one day. It’s good enough if they are willing to reduce the use of single-use plastic tableware. By doing so, we can help solve the deteriorating plastic pollution problem the Earth is facing every single day.”
Remarks: Angelina was very serious about the shooting interview and got herself prepared in front of the camera with a script of messages she wanted to convey to the public. What she did is a solid proof of how much effort she is willing to spend to encourage more people to join us in the plastic-free initiatives. At the beginning of this blog are some lines she wrote to Hong Kong. Echoing it are lines from Angelina which conclude this article:
We want to show everyone that plastic pollution has become a common problem around the world, and microplastics have also seriously endangered marine life and our ecosystem.
Hopefully, we can help twist today’s common practice of single-use plastics. Together, we can save the Earth for our future generations.
If you are interested in joining Beyond Plastic’s plastic-free efforts, or learning more about the team, please visit their Facebook group
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