Beach Clean Up 2004

On Saturday, 18th September the annual DOCT Earth Day Clean Up took place. This year again the two islands of Racha Yai and Racha Noi were the focus of activities.
More than 150 divers of the local dive community, as well as some of their customers, joined the boats from Dive Asia, Marine Project, Santana, Scandinavian Divers and Sea Bees. Unfortunately the boats of South Siam Divers and Kontiki had to cancel for unknown reasons the evening before, so on some boats it was a bit crowded, but still good fun.
Sea Bees went with 30 divers to Racha Noi while the others spread around the reefs of Racha Yai.  We got big support from the Department of Marine and Coastal Resources, which provided professional mash bags and joined the action with 25 divers on their own boat, and stationed their Medic First Aid Boat on Racha Island as well.
Badalveda Diving Medicine (Bangkok Phuket Hospital), SSS Recompression Chamber Network and Vachira Hospital provided landbased medical support and had their ambulance cars on standby.

After the registration of the participants on Chalong Pier, everyone got his personal Clean Up Package with a T-Shirt (sponsored by Badalveda, SSS Recompression Chamber Network, Vachira Hospital, PADI,  Project AWARE and AM Productions), precise clean up instructions, a PADI Aware Certificate and for enjoyment during transfer to Racha, three Scuba Globe magazines. Breakfast was provided on all boats and around 11 am the divers got submerged. After 40 to 60 minutes they brought up a lot of trash which was taken over by the participants of Phuket Marine Biological Center (PMBC). They weighed, classified and put everything on record for statistical purposes, which will be brought to your attention at a later time. We were quite surprised that except for Racha Noi there was not that much garbage to collect - this is maybe due to regular clean ups and the increased environmental awareness of the local community.

At the same time as the annual Earth Day Clean Up a Reefball Project was introduced by John Walch und Todd Barber (CEO Reef Ball Project) at Racha Island. This project is under the patronage of the Ministry of Natural Resources and Enviroment  and the ceremony was officially opened by HE Suwit Khunkiti, Minister of Natural Resources and Enviroment. For more information about this very interesting project please have a look at http://reefball.org or http://reefball.com.

The official part of the Clean Up Day took place at The Racha, a new 5* location at Bungalow Bay on Racha Islands. They provided the transport from the beach to the resort, though a lot of people prefered to walk. After a lunch buffet traditionally the 13 students from the DOCT Divemaster Program were honoured by receiving their certificates from HE Suwit Khunkiti, Minister of Natural Resources and Enviroment, PADI Regional Manager Rick Ray, Holger and Andrea from DOCT. 

Final point of the day was when HE Suwit Khunkiti inspected the garbage - at the first glimpse it was recognizable that almost all of the garbage can be related to fishery, from fishing nets, ropes, fishing lines with hooks to oil filters and dumped batteries.

Collection Data - provided by Niphon Phongsuwan from Phuket Marine Biological Center (PMBC)
Fishing gears (such as fishing net, hook line)	111.33 kg	The Divers from Phuket Marine Biological Center (PMBC)
Rope	52.80 kg
Glass bottle	15.60 kg
Soft drink can and beer can	6.80 kg
Metal sling	12.80 kg
Other metal materials	16.20 kg
Plastic and foam	74.70 kg
Rubber tube	3.00 kg
Cloth	11.20 kg
Tire	28.00 kg
Other	13.30 kg
Total	345.73 kg