More than 2,000 volunteers braved scorching hot temperatures on Lamma Island yesterday to take part in a massive beach clean-up as campaigners warned that plastic waste is killing sea turtles and other wildlife.
The blue-clad army of volunteers descended upon Shek Pai Wan near Sham Wan, a secluded beach a one-hour hike away from to So Kwu Wan pier.
Sham Wan, which is known as “turtle cove”, is one of the few regular sea turtle nesting grounds in southern China, and it’s closed to visitors from June to the end of October.
However, campaign organisers warned that turtles aren’t able to hatch their eggs on the beach because of the growing amount of rubbish around the coast.
They also warned the creatures were at risk of being injured or stabbed by pieces of plastic buried in the sand and, in some cases, could die from ingesting plastic on the beach and in the sea.
Hong Kong-based environmentalist Robert Lockyer told Coconuts HK: “When the babies hatch from the eggs they work their way back out through the sand, so the babies get trapped in plastic bags. Any plastic that’s floating in the ocean looks like a jellyfish, and the turtles eat jellyfish so they eat the plastic.”
This is the second time Hong Kong enrivonmentalist Robert Lockyer has organized the turtle cove beach clean-up. Last year the event attracted a few hundred people.
“When you look at the beach it looks clean, but when you get up close you’ve got all this,” said Lockyer, pulling from the sand a piece of polystyrene. “That in a baby sea turtle’s throat is death.”
“And that was what was pulled out of a sea turtle’s nose,” he said, pointing to a straw and referring to a viral video from last year which showed one of the common plastic tubes lodged in a turtle’s nasal cavity.
Volunteers were reminded to keep hydrated and take a dip in the sea every 15 minutes as temperatures on the ground reached at least 48 degrees Celsius at 9am yesterday.
Volunteers got on their hands and knees to pick up pieces plastic such as straws, forks, styrofoam beads and biro pens buried in the sand. One group even found a discarded car battery.
Among volunteers was Democratic Party lawmaker Ted Hui, who is expected to bring up the issue at the legislative council environmental panel today.
Hui told Coconuts HK the government should extend the protection area to include the shoreline and the shallow waters of the bay.
He added that he was happy to see so many people turn up for the beach clean-up, but said the government needed to do more and not just rely on volunteers.
“For the past 10 to 15 years, we’ve seen beaches in Lamma and especially Sham Wan… were just not properly managed or preserved and [the government] do not have good resources to do scientific research [such as] tracing the turtles and analysing all the data.
“So I propose the government to really put public money into it and to have the government cooperate with institutions, universities, and to really put resources into scientific research.”
Reader Interactions