Letʼs clean up the beach! On October 3, 2015, Oʼrightʼs team and family members gathered at Taoyuanʼs Yong-an Fishery Harbor, wearing gloves and holding long metal clips and large garbage bags, and began their annual “Bend Down and Love the Earth” ceremony.
Bend down, Roll up Your Sleeves, and Pick up Trash
Since the International Coastal Cleanup kicked off this September, O’right and team showed our support by volunteering in coastal cleanup events in northern, central, and southern Taiwan. On October 3, our largest coastal cleanup team from O’right Green Headquarters brought along family members to clear Taoyuan’s Yong-an Fishery Harbor under the blazing sun! This was the first time in 5 years O’right hosted the coastal cleanup event on our own with the help of professional volunteers of The Society of Wilderness. O’right CEO Steven Ko lead 200 fellow colleagues to bend down and clean up the beach on a hot 30-degree day.
A Colorful River: Garbage Everywhere
Many colleagues brought along their children to give the younger generation an opportunity to personally experience and learn from this special environmental lesson. That day, among the 355 kg of trash we picked up from the beach, 36% were recyclable goods including plastic bottles, plastic caps, cans, glass bottles, 55% were non-recyclable waste such as plastic bags, plastic debris, buoys, fishing nets, toothbrushes, slops, polystyrene foam, and 9% were hazardous waste including needles, lighters, iron nails, and glass debris. Seeing all the hard work everyone put in, several colleagues new to the O’right family and family members who participated in this activity for the first time were shocked at how much trash there is on the beach.
After collecting all the garbage, O’right and team arranged the trash in the shape of a river. Our volunteer experience showed us how people, for the sake of convenience, keep mass-producing various plastic goods and casually dispose of them after use, allowing these plastic waste to enter the ocean through sewers and rivers and polluting the waters. What’s worse, plastic waste eventually breaks down into plastic debris, which is then consumed by countless marine animals and harming them.
Itʼs Never Too Late to Change Marine Environment
ICC statistics show that in 2014 a total of 560,000 people worldwide volunteered their time to help clean the beaches and picked up 734 metric tons of waste, among which 8 metric tons was contributed by Taiwan. So, don’t underestimate the power of one person to change the world. All you need to do is to devote a little bit of your time, and together with each bit of effort made from other people around the world, our efforts greatly contribute to protecting the ocean and Earth. In addition, coastal cleanup not only gives everyone the chance to look at Taiwan coastlines in another way, but also allows us to ponder on the cause of marine pollution, and teach us and our younger generations to pick up trash, and, more importantly, make sure waste is properly sorted and recycled. Do not pollute the environment and form secondary pollution; that’s the significance of coastal cleanup movements.
