Facts and figures on marine pollution.
“Over 220 million tons of plastic are produced each year. Plastics can contribute to reducing our carbon footprint. They provide improved insulation, lighter packaging, are found in phones, computers, medical devices, etc. But appropriate disposal is often not addressed. However, waste and disposal remain an issue in most of the world. Plastic pollution is threatening the entire world causing an imbalance in the ecosystem, plastic wastes which were accumulated in water streams over time are ending up in the ocean and affecting livelihoods and marine ecosystem” (Source – copied from unesco.org)
What we have done?
A beach cleanup event was organized by our group of volunteers (iCommunity - NPO) and was held on April 13th 2019 at Kallady beach stretch, which was identified as the most polluted public beach around Batticaloa and most visited by thousand local and foreign tourists in weekends mostly.
We invited public and volunteers through social media events, posts and online registrations.
The event was planned to begin at 8.00 AM, but we were able to start before that time since most of the volunteers arrived before the planned time. We began introducing each other. This included Students, teachers, parents, Children’s, families, volunteer teams, NGO’s, NPO’s and a lot of individuals. Around 200 people all together participated in this event.
I have divided the beach stretch into 6 zones and the volunteers were divided into groups and instructed to separate the garbage while collecting into three categories: Plastic items, Glass, small plastic residues and polythene or plastic bags.
All the 6 teams participated with much enthusiasm in the sunny morning. At the end of the event within 1 hour, we were able to collect around 400kgs of garbage that included;
- Plastic - 98.6 Kgs
- Glass – 156 Kgs
- Polythene and Plastic bags – 82.4 Kgs
- Microplastic – 63 kgs
We wrapped up the event by gathering all the volunteers with the garbage they have collected at the beach entrance and refreshments were served for the participants (thank you Dilmah Conservation for this). The event officially wrapped up on the same day at 5.00 PM at Kallady Bridge Market Pavilion. yes, we did a photography competition too. we ask people to send the photos of the polluted place around Batticaloa and we have made this banner. Municipal Council Mayor and Divisional Secretary gave a small gift to the winner too.
It was very inspirational to see so many of the local people working together with us to clean up this part of Kallady beach. We split into small teams and quickly filled around a few dozens of large bags with garbage, which was a significant lesson for us to realize the power of unity among people. It was unsettling to see how much trash we had gathered, considering we had cleaned a very little distance along the beach. Despite the fact that we were picking up garbage under the hot sun, we all greatly enjoyed the experience. Therefore, we decided to begin our future clean up events by early morning at least around 6.30 am or so Many of the participants were eager to talk to us about the local issues raised by these plastic garbages and we could see many youth take numerous pictures and posting them on social media. Overall, it was a great opportunity for all of us to get together and host such a great event.
Finally, I have made a plastic man with collected plastic bottles and we took more selfies with this man 
here we go @ErmesT !! I’m sure you are very happy and this is how we have done that 400kg in an hour time. unity is always more powerful and if we could spend the whole day, then I’m sure the beach would have been clean without a single plastic. we have planned similar cleaning twice a month. @KarenVChin hope you would like our plastic man 
@helga19 , @DavidTito , @br14n , @KashifMisidia This has ever been the biggest cleanup we’ve hosted all this time
Thank you for all who participated in this beach cleaning to save our mother earth.
from us and our future generations. Pass my compliments to all Srilankan Localguides team.