MARINE DEBRIS
An issue with a huge impact
Our world has sped up and people are on the move constantly. To sustain this we have developed a single use throw-away culture. Grab a coffee on the go, buy a sandwich to take with you to a meeting, eat microwaved dinner. In doing so, we have created an environmental catastrophe. Our consumerist culture has led to a devastating amount of marine debris.
Marine debris can be defined as ‘trash’ that ends up in oceans, seas, or other large bodies of water. It can be an empty can, a cigarette butt washed off the sand or a plastic bag that flies with the wind and ends up in the ocean, potentially harming marine life.
So what is the solution…?
TAKING ACTION
1 REDUCE and REUSE
The only real long-term solution is to reduce our consumption. Every object we use should be precious, used right up until it’s no longer viable for its purpose and if possible fixed. We need to change our mentality to see every item in our life as one we treasure, even if it’s as simple as a cloth bag. Our disposable mentality needs to be disposed off!
2 PRESSURE
We must put pressure on corporations and businesses to change materials used in manufacturing, to change what is stocked in the supermarkets, to say no to single use items and only sell environmentally sustainable products.
3 CLEAN UP DIVES
Clean up dives and monitoring marine debris, are an essential part of being able to develop solutions in order to avoid debris occurring in the first place. The dives raise awareness, prevent immediate harm to the marine ecosystems and as we count what we collect, they provide us with the data needed to find long term solutions.
Each month, in our hometown of Dahab, we organise a clean up dive and contribute to the global initiative for change. We collaborate with a different dive centre each month in order to spread awareness and get the whole dive community involved. We are also part of organising a monthly ‘dive against debris’ in Sahl Hasheesh as part of their Deep Sweep initiative.
We are currently proud parents of “The Bridge, Dahab” and “The Pier, Sahl Hasheesh” dive site which we have adopted and pledged to protect in collaboration with Project Aware Dive Against Debris.
At each clean up event you get to join us for the following:
- Dive briefing with added environmental briefing
- Clean Up Dive
- Count and recording of marine debris
- Debriefing and summary of what we have collected
Through our events we want to also empower those who join by arming them with knowledge of the coral reefs and how to protect them.
Why do we count the marine debris and where does the data go?
After collecting the debris we group the debris together in categories such as plastic, metal, cloth. Each category has subcategories. The number of debris in each of these is then counted and entered onto our Project Azraq database and a global database on the Project Aware website.
In Dahab we have collected = 73.5 kgs of Marine Debris
Plastic
56 Bags ; 137 Packaging; 1 ballon; 35 bottles; 575 caps; 2 cup; 4 takeaway containers; 3 cigarette lighters; 34 synthetic carpets; 1845 cigarette butts; 53 cutlery; 4 furnishing; 15 pvc pipes; 10 tobacco packaging; 1 diaper; 21 fishing line; 1 nylon rope; 257 food wrappers; 3 latex gloves; 15 dive gear; 5 sheeting; 11 straws; 778 fragments ; 12 strapping bands; 3 fake plants; 1 pacifier baby.
Glass
235 glass & ceramic fragments; 14 glass bottles
Cloth
20 bags; 4 baby wipes; 3 rope; 547 fragments; 1 carpet; 21Kg fabric.
Paper
29 Bags; 1 book or magazine; 63 bottle wrappers; 291 fragments.
Mix Materials
2 Electronics; 4 bricks & chunks of cement; 2 medical plasters; 1 plastic reel; 2 organic; 2 pillows; 4 fiberglass
Entangled Animals
4 crabs inside a plastic bag (released)
Thanks for your help and support
Volunteer with us…
We have an awesome community of divers who support the work we do and join us every month for our clean up dives. We would like to invite you to join us and become part of our Azraq family as it grows!
If you would like to volunteer please send us a message.
