The Date was the 4th of February 2020. Sri Lanka Independence Day. To date, it has been 72 years since we have won our independence from British Colonizers. Yes, we proudly celebrate our independence day as a nation. But day by day we are giving our country to a new invader. Colonizers occupy our lands a bit more than a hundred years. But these new invaders are going to occupy our lands forever if we don’t act fast.
Plastics and Polythene are not only invading my precious country it has become a worldwide problem. It’s invading the world. Therefore I thought to fight back. Start my war against plastic as a local guide. Selected the Heroic day our ancestors won independence for my nation.
I hosted the Beach Cleanup under #LocalGuidesClearn the world tag. As always my LG partner @kasunaaa was right by my side for this meetup. We selected a urban beach area called Crow Island Beach park right by the side “Kelani” river(Widest river in Sri Lanka) joins the sea. This is an urban beach where lot of people use and heavily polluted by plastic and polythene. We needed a lot of manpower so I collaborated with a few of my office colleagues and a member’s from a fb group formed to make plastic recycling to do this Cleanup.
We got together at Crow Island Beach at 7.00 am. Kasun and I arrived there first and soon after 19 other volunteers showed up. @IlankovanT was going to participate but he couldn’t due to bad health on that day. Miss you there Tushy.
First, we inspected the beach area. It was chaos. Hundreds of plastics bottles and other plastic items were lying around. Some glass bottles, beer cans were also here and there. We understood this going to be a big mission. So we get started without a delay
We distributed the Glows and Garbage bags among the team. Then we gave out instructions to the team to categorize and separate the garbage. Separate the plastic bottles, polythene, other hard plastics glass, and biodegradable garbage separately.
We split into groups and started the cleanup. Quickly our garbage bags began to fill. one hour was passed, Sun was starting to shine in the clear sky, slowly but surely we were making progress. But yet lot more ground to cover.
Yet we were determined to cover the whole area. We found a lot of interesting stuff. Some toys and action figures(Bat Man), A Buddha stative was among those.
We continued our mission with enthusiasm. But the Rising Sun was taking it’s tall on us. When you are doing good things, good things come to you. There was a kid’s football team who was practicing in a side of the beach with their coach. They saw that we were bit outnumbered against the army of plastics bottles we were fighting against. Coach and those kids joined our battle. Those kids were full of energy and lit up our battle with reinforcements. Suddenly plastics shoulders were starting to retreat. Beach is getting cleaned fast. We sweep the beach from one end to another collected lots of plastics.
Then we gathered the wood and leaves to make the beach look tidy. It was a job well done. Kids started to play Football in their clean beach. We won the battle for the day. But the war yet to be fought.
This is why
During the event, we realized these plastics are not only what people who come to the beach throw away. Even if we stop all people who come to the beach polluting the beach there will still plastics will end up here. Guess who else is responsible and how it ends up here?
Who : It’s all of us who are responsible
How : Through the Kelani River
Most of the plastics we improperly thrown away will end up in creeks and then in the river. Ultimately they end they float down the river and finally go to the sea. Then with the high tide, some would come back to the shore and remain on the beach once the tide goes down.
We understood the problem was bigger than what we were anticipated and the solution was a bit more complex than a one-day cleanup. The solution should come from all of us from the beach to the midland.
We all must
*Reduce usage
*Reuse
*Recycle
As much as plastics as we can. Properly dispose of them in the right methods so that they won’t end up in waterways and natural habitats.
#LocalGuidesCleanTheWorld #SriLankaLocalGuides
Shared album here
@ErmesT Please tag anybody who might be interested.
We missed you there.
Felt like we did something for those little ones. Lot more to do to save the environment for their future. 
