Please view the video update on the Plastic Pellet spill in Hong Kong. Please watch, share, and get to your local beach asap to help with the cleanup!
Video Update – Plastic Disaster – Hong Kong
Categories: Hong Kong, Plastic in the Ocean
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Spent a few hours cleaning up Silvermine Beach and the adjacent one in Lantau this morning with a friend. There were loads of nurdles there, but if you go at it, you can really notice a difference – so i encourage people to go, even if it’s only for an hour or two. Some observations: there is zero awareness about this locally, and little being done. at the first small beach we were chased off by someone moving sand with a bulldozer (after we got a lot of them). On silvermine, the local cleaning people worked beside us at a point, but they use rakes to clean up everything else, like buffalo poo, which is all less harmful anyway, and the rakes are too small for the pellets, and just disturb the place, making them harder to pick up. people coming by asked us what we were doing, in surprise. people had no idea about the spill.
Notes on how to go about it: where we were, the pellets were all along the tide lines. as the new waves came in, new nurdles could be found at the line they had reached. where the highest tide had come in, there were loads mixed in with the debris. a broom and dustpan worked well enough, but was imperfect. otherwise, you can just collect and pick them up. After we left, we thought that maybe some type of sieve would help cause you end up picking up a lot of sand with the pellets. its easier on the flat, harder wet sand, where they stay on top and can be swept up.
go, do a little- it helps a lot.
Thank you! Thank you ! Thank you! I am so pleased you got down to the beach and helped to clean up the pellets. We have been trying really hard to get the word out and get people down. Luckily today we had an interview with China Daily who will print the story on Friday, so a lot more peole will hear about this. We have been working very hard with the government and telling them what needs to be done as well.
I will speak to the FEHD who organises beach cleaners to have brooms as well as rakes.
I would like to mass make an effective sand sieve for the pellets and trying to come up with a suitable design – any comments appreciated there.
I agree with you about the hard wet sand it is the best time to clean whilst the tide is going out. Also what we found was effective at the moment was using fine mesh fish nets or pool cleaner type nets to scoop the pellets out in the water. There are huge concentrations floating in there.
Thank you again 🙂 and thank you for the feedback, it is important to know what is happening on the beaches.
it was a pleasure. all good ideas, and yes, a pool net would be good. i’ll be away for a while otherwise i could come out again soon. good luck with the effort.