Doing the right thing?

I was all excited for this day to come! Finally, my workplace has decided to organise an event with environmental responsibility.

The event was to be a Beach Cleanup event at the Changi Beach. I was keen to attend this event although it was on a Saturday. I know tonnes of people who were not willing to go but had to.

The last time I took part in a coastal cleanup event was back in 1998 I reckon, I had such fun times back then so I was really excited for this. I was thinking of how much difference we will make for the day. Yes the difference will be temporary but at least we make a minor difference.

So the day rolled around and I met up with my ex-colleague (she has recently left service and is leaving Singapore for the States soon). Unfortunately we ran late, but we still managed to make it in to the event just as it started. Wasn't too good for me cos I was supposed to be taking photographs but it's ok, I can still take lots of cleanup photos.

Everyone dispersed and started to do their thing. You have those who really want to do it and those who act like they want to do it.

Well, normally, I would have assumed that an event with a theme of environmental responsbility like a beach cleanup, would be centered around man made rubbish. That turned out to not be the case. This event was organised in conjunction with NEA (my favourite agency.... not) and their guys came down and provided some equipment for us as well as guidelines.

Nothing above the line of seaweed will be within our jurisdiction that day. That's only half the beach, if at all. Apparently we were discouraged from cleaning the upper half because that part was under National Parks. Ok...... I'm fine with that.. I mean, even back when I was taking part in the International Coastal Cleanup Day, we had well demarcated zones. Only at the time, it was anything on the beach. If it was not on the beach (i.e grassy area) we did not have to clean it. Of course we were not stopped from doing it. The reason behind that though was different as they had separate events for those areas, and truth be told, we do have to draw the lines somewhere.

Next... guess what we were cleaning up? Seaweed, shells, branches and other bits and pieces of NATURAL items. We had a comparatively low percentage of MAN MADE rubbish which should have been our target item group! We were in fact, potentially destroying the environment, instead of helping the environment!

Yes, I agree that what we did that day was just what the cleaners do everyday, but I don't feel that it gels well with environmental responsibility! For the cleaners, they probably have to cleanup the seaweed to make the beach look pretty for us humans to enjoy. So now are we doing the right thing for Earth, or for ourselves?

It was a rather disappointing event after all. I was not the only one who noticed this oddity.

In my book, we get rid of man made stuff, not natural stuff. We need to be able to differentiate.

However, it is still a great improvement that we even have such events.

To better events in future!