The Patong Beach Clean Up Day 2008 was held on November 8th by the Lions Club of Patong
and volunteer divers from World Dive Team, All 4 Diving, Seaworld, Scandinavian Divers, & Mermaid Liveaboard companies
and the local students of 4 schools.
They came from Wat Suwan Kiriwong School, Sai Nam Yen School, Ketho School in Kathu and Kalim School.
Bangkok Hospital Phuket provided an ambulance back up.
The organizers also set up a stall selling their friends and supporters books about the Tsunami and the Marine environment.
The Patong Clean Up Day was organized in order to collect all kinds of waste under water and on Patong beach,
by The Lions Club of Patong Beach, especially Mr.Pong Chongchit who was emcee and quite a funny speaker:
The organizers arranged a draw to split the students into five coloured teams,
of blue, red, green, yellow, and light blue
with free t-shirts for each student.
The students started their beach clean up quickly as they were competing for the most rubbish collected for each team. Most tourists had not yet arrived on the beach, so it was quite clean already but some tourists there seemed to be happy to watch the kids work hard.
The kids were picking up every little bit of rubbish they could find, however small.
They were supported by the Tourist Police volunteers and sponsors who provided boats and equipment.
Meanwhile the divers went in long tail boats with their team colours, on to the bay near Paradise Beach. They chose this bay because they knew there would be rubbish on the sea bed.
Two divers, Virginia & Chris, told us what they were looking for:
Two more divers, Steve & his buddy, brought up bags of more rubbish and anchors which looked heavy.
The nets & string were the most common things collected.
Johan & David showed us what they got:
The local fishermen should be ashamed to see what they have left in the sea for others to collect.
There were even some hula hoops
and a large plastic object which looked like scaffolding. Chris said it was about 30-40 kilos in weight:
Who knows where it came from, but it looked ugly.
The Scandinavian divers in the green team found a fishing rod which was added to the pile of ropes, nets and other rubbish.
The students collected the rubbish for their teams from the boat,
including dangerous looking objects.
The light blue team was happy to receive the heavy plastic object.
The yellow team of divers also brought in some heavy items for their kids.
They weighed all the items like the anchor which was 33
kilos and added the numbers up for each teams indicator tree.
The rubbish included all the bags which the kids filled up from the beach that morning, totaling over 625 kilos,
because of heavy items such as this tyre which was 65 kilos.
All the kids & divers deserved a nice lunch for their efforts.
The Phuket Aquarium also set up an educational games booth to identify marine life.
The Phuket Governor Preecha came along to inspect the rubbish collected. The Lions Club of Patong Beach president Claude de Crissey showed him
and Kathu Police Chief Krissak what they think should be done about the increasing amount of rubbish found on Patongs previously pristine beach and clean sea.
Phuket Provincial Administration Organisation CEO Paiboon also came to the closing ceremony, with a thank you speech by the governor:
The winning team was the reds, for the most weight but they all deserved prizes
for doing the dirty jobs others should do.
The Lions Club gave out 20 scholarships to some of the worthy students.
The kids were very happy and hope their scholarships help them to study for their future careers like policemen, perhaps to stop pollution in Patong.
Claude thanked the children, with a picture
The police chief also gave trophies to their teachers who are important messengers for the environment.
A PADI representative thanked the divers and tourist police too.
At the end, everyone joined the Lions members to roar their thanks on a great job done.
Special report for Andaman News NBT (VHF dial) + Radio Thailand FM90.5 at 8.30am & perhaps repeats on Phuket Cable TV channel 1 at 7pm & 1am, broadcast to Phang Nga, Krabi & Phuket provinces & maybe Mazz Radio FM108 at 7pm in Phuket, Wednesday12 November 2008 http://thainews.prd.go.th/newsenglish/ & www.YouTube.com/AndamanNews.com
Send comments to AndamanNews@yahoo.com
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