Environmental, health benefits of clean beaches emphasised

Islamabad :Encouraging and empowering people to take an active role in the preservation and cleaning up of oceans are critical for conservation of the ocean resources and the economic, food, and environmental services offered by them.

At the same time, we must realise the significance of raising public awareness of environmental and health benefits of keeping our coastal beaches trash-free and checking contamination of oceans.

This was stated by Federal Climate Change Minister Mushahidullah Khan in his International Coastal Cleanup Day message. The marking of the day was launched by the Ocean Conservancy, an organisation working to help protect the ocean from the challenges it faces every year.

It serve as a voice for the ocean, speaking globally of the issues in collaboration with different national, regional and international organisations and lobby with each to ask governments, media to join the global voice or call for keep the beaches keen, beautiful and uncontaminated for trash free ocean.

The minister said the Coastal Cleanup Day was a chance to make a real difference and take initiatives to clean up coastal beaches of trash, and motivate others to do the same. He said the coastal cleanup and beautification event must be tapped as an opportunity to transform behaviours towards cleaner, healthier ocean waters and coastal surroundings.

“We must keep playing our part to beaches free from trash, particularly plastic trash like straws, empty beverage bottles tea cups and plastic bags to help reduce the amount of garbage that gets into the ocean by hauling it away. We can also check with local government and non-governmental environmental conservation organiations to get tips and techniques to help us all be more conscientious about our living style and the negative impacts it casts on the oceans,” he said.

The minister voiced serious concern about the way the oceans and their resources are being ruthlessly polluted to the complete disadvantage of the environment, oceans and humans lives.

He regretted that every year, millions of gallons of untreated wastewater that flowed into oceans and tons of garbage wound up in these water bodies, over 60 percent of it being plastic material.

“Plastics especially last a very long time in the ocean, and according to estimates of environmental organisations some 50,000 individual pieces of plastic litter for every square mile of ocean. Besides, plastics are very lethal to marine life, which lead to deaths of more than a million birds and over 100,000 seals, turtles, and whales, and a huge number of fish in our oceans globally,” he said.

The minister however said the Coastal Cleanup Day offered a great opportunity to the people keep beaches clean of trash and encouraged them to get out to their beaches and clean up the garbage that washed up on shore or left by visitors daily.

“We must understand that the trash in the oceans badly impacts the world on many scales, including poising food sources, harming wildlife, humans, and impacting the livelihood of those who work on the ocean. More importantly, it leads to economic damage by affecting tourism and recreation and the money they bring into those poor and marginalised coastal communities. Therefore, solving these issues need us to take initiatives on our part to wipe out the sources of the trash that disfigure our beaches and ruin the ocean and ocean resources,” he said.

The minister appreciated the over 700 volunteers from different educational institutions and organisations, who picked thousands of straws, plastic beverage cups, tea cups, plastic grocery bags and stirrers, which pose a serious danger to animals like sea turtles, albatross and fish who can eat them.

He said although the Coastal Cleanup Day was definitely a dirty job, it must have come to prove rewarding one in the end knowing volunteers helped make a difference and let themselves and their parents and the society be proud of them all.

“Volunteers have made me really proud of them by collecting trash from cigarettes to plastic bags to glass bottles and more and making the beach look neat and clean,” he said.