#UNESCO WORLD HERITAGE SITE AFFECTED BY WAVE OF GLOBAL TRASH
(Posted 11th April 2019)
(Picture courtesy of the Seychelles Island Foundation as the SIF CEO Frauke Fleischer-Dogley and the volunteers are received by President Danny Faure)
A five week clean up exercise on the Aldabra Atoll has come to an end and the outcome is stark. 25 tons of foreign rubbish had been swept ashore at this remote atoll – a UNESCO World Heritage Site for that matter – and volunteers from the UK and from the Seychelles worked hard to collect it all and free the pristine marine environment of these inherent dangers for marine life.
Mr. Jeremy Raguain of the Seychelles Island Foundation, the organization managing this site and also the Valee de Mai on the island of Praslin, explained how the process, stretched over three phases, worked: ‘During the first phase, we concentrated on just collecting as much waste as possible, carrying out surveys on the waste composition and weight at the end of each session. In the second phase, we had to move all the waste collected to various locations along the whole coastline that is accessible to small boats. This meant carrying sacks of up to 15 kg and slings of up to 60 kg.‘ In the third and final phase all the rubbish bags then had to be moved first on to smaller boats before finally being loaded on a larger vessel to bring it back to the main island of Mahe for proper disposal.
(Picture courtesy of Seychelles Island Foundation)
It goes to show that plastic pollution in our oceans has reached critical levels and calls for the end of single use plastics have increased, as have calls for a more focuses collection and recycling of plastic waste.
For more information about Aldabra visit www.sif.sc
