A huge congratulations to everyone involved in the Lighthouse Bay Clean-up project that has spanned 4 months and involved 8 hikes to the bay. The Mikkeller Running Club Koh Tao have spearheaded the project along side Johnny Stafford from Island Travel and Belynda Suva.
A big community achievement
Video by Huw Penson at Koh Tao Drone
The final hike and clean-up took place on Wednesday and involved 21 volunteers led by Simon Randall from The Beer Masons and Jennifer & Simon Dowling from ECO Koh Tao.
For those who don’t know Koh Tao or Lighthouse Bay, the bay itself is only accessible by boat or a long hike through the jungle, so it is impossible to remove any collected rubbish out of the bay by land.
Having hiked to Lighthouse Bay the previous Sunday, I had seen for myself how much rubbish had already been collected and bagged up over the past months and what still remained to be picked up from the beach and realised that this amazing group of people needed some help. So I commandeered our dive boat to take the trip over to finally remove all of this rubbish from the bay.
We took with us a 2 person kayak along with captain P Dong’s small boat so that we could ferry the rubbish from the beach to the dive boat. It took 17 trips in all.
There was a huge amount of Styrofoam, plastics, ropes and nets but what shocked me was the amount of micro plastics.
In total, we removed 213 bin bags filled with rubbish, along with some other large pieces of plastic and foam objects. The Koh Tao Municipality arranged for us to leave it at the pier for their collection.
Unfortunately, Lighthouse Bay is one of several bays on Koh Tao that receives a huge amount of rubbish yearly being brought in by the tides and currents. Next on our list is Mao Bay. Join the Facebook group Community Revolution Against Plastic to keep up to date with future clean-ups, and join us in making a difference!
Well done to everyone involved!
This shows what can be achieved when a community comes together!
Photo and Drone images credit: Huw Penson @ Koh Tao Drone
