Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Beach Cleanup

One of the first actions of Roberstport Community Works will be to initiate a regular, highly visible, weekend beach cleanup. This cleanup will provide a half day of paid labor to at least six different community members. Since a growing amount of medical waste is washing up on the beaches of Robertsport, everyone in the cleanup crew will participate in a brief training that prepares them for handling glass, syringes or other potentially hazardous materials.

The cleanup crew will be chosen by the son of the community chief, who has expressed an intention to help us involve as many hardworking members of the community as possible. They will be provided with clearly labeled "Beach Cleanup" t-shirts in addition to leather gloves and trash bags--to remove any potential stigma that might pertain to picking up the trash of other people.

For the time being, we regret that no recycling options are available for our glass, metal and plastic refuse. In the coming months, we hope to partner with people and organizations who can help us discover what options exist for processing this waste in a sustainable fashion and how such options can be funded.

3 comments:

  1. How did the cleanup campaign go? One thought on the recycling - you can do some pretty cool art and tile work with sea glass. It turns out look great!

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  2. I wish we had sea glass! Given current levels of ocean pollution, marine debris is mostly plastic. We're looking into partnering to create a low-tech industry in plastic recycling, making chairs and bowls. Anyone with knowledge of a similar project, please get in touch!

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  3. I wish we had sea glass: we're dealing with sharp glass, its more hazardous counterpart. Unprocessed, it usually gets thrown on top of walls when it isn't being pulled out of tires and flip flops; but I wonder if there isn't some way to give it a decorative flavor.

    The cleanup was on hold for two reasons: one we wanted to get our paperwork in the filing process and two, we want to coordinate with the superintendent, to make sure that she can participate in the inaugural effort.

    It should be coming up soon.

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