Cleantech, the environmental management arm of the Abans Group, collaborated with the Institute of Environmental Professionals Sri Lanka (IEPSL) to conduct an extensive beach clean-up campaign in honour of World Environment Day recently.
The event focused on raising awareness of marine pollution and its deleterious impact on Sri Lanka’s world-famous beaches. A team comprising of Cleantech and IEPSL members as well as volunteers from the public descended upon the Wellawatte coastline to perform the large-scale beach clean-up. Armed with black garbage bags, each individual worked to clear the region of the waste that regularly washes up on the country’s shores. The initiative recovered huge amounts of debris and castoff items, with plastics encompassing 31.4% of the total.
Eighty percent of the plastics found were PET bottles. This gave Cleantech the opportunity to educate the participants on the proper disposal of household plastic waste, and present recycling as an easy solution to preventing further beach pollution.
H.S. Premachandra, IEPSL President, said, “Professionals, service providers and regulators got together in front of so many beach users to give the important message that we should not pollute the environment.”
“Often we take pride in the fact that Sri Lanka’s beautiful beaches are renowned across the globe. But do we do our part in keeping these beaches clean?” said Janaka Wijesekara, Head of Environmental Management, Cleantech (Pvt) Ltd.