Early on a Saturday morning, 125 students, staff and alumni from the National University of Singapore found themselves at Lim Chu Kang Lane 9 being briefed on what was going to occupy them for the next 2 hours...mud, sweat and a lot of trash! LCK Lane 9 hides entry to an adjacent mangrove which has seen better times. The onslaught of trash and illegal dumping of unwanted urban waste has taken its toll on the surrounding mangrove so much so that the entire pocket was totally covered with all manner of trash, mainly plastic and wood. Where the wood would cover up intermittent patches of ground, the plastic filled up every other nook and cranny so much so that vegatation was totally absent from the central portion of the mangrove pocket.
The variety of trash was amazing!. There were tyres, a TV set... and even a car bumper amongst others...
... an office chair ...
... 2 sinks ... (and also a toilet bowl)
Alas, one of the volunteers found a syringe with needle attached in the midst of the many other volunteers. This was safely put away in plastic bottle salvaged from the mangrove floor and then carefully disposed of.
standing precariously on a bed of wood and plastic.
some of the wood had nails on them and looking before you step was something all the volunteers had to do to avoid getting stung by a rusty nail.
one of the volunteers recycled plastic bags to protect her shoes from the mangrove mud
one of the many blue chemical drums commonly used by the fish-farming community just offshore from the mangrove
at some adjacent areas, scrawny prickly bush had managed to grow over the trash making retrieval diffficult
This long tube of styrofoam is also used by the local fish-farming community. Styrofoam like this will disintergrate into tiny pieces which can potentially cover up much more of the mangrove than the original item. There were many many more chunks or parts of styrofoam boxes seen all over in the mangrove.
there were quite a few large metal drums too. Hopefully, these do not have any residual chemicals which may leak out into the mangrove... and the volunteers!
picking up the many plastic pieces is a laborious process, especially the omnipresent styrofoam pieces
naturally, getting muddied up is all part of the tedious cleaning
there was a whole bunch of ciggarette lighters ... probably dumped
these pails look like they were dumped from the adjacent access path.
local dumping continues to be a cause of litter.
heaving the trash all the way out of the mangrove ...
plastics bits and styrofoam floating on the water once the larger pieces had been removed
here's a look at part of the collected trash
the hauling continued as more and more trash was removed from the mangrove
the efforts undertaken by the volunteers to bring out the trash
thanks to the NUS volunteers, 1887 kilograms of trash was removed from the mangrove. Most of this was packed into 181 bags but there were also many bulky items which could not be weighed.
the mangrove is now is in a slightly better shape with a lot of the obvious first layer of trash removed.
There is still a lot of trash stuck beneath a lot of wood. Although the wood will decompose over time, too much wood concentrated in a small space which is affected by the tidal influences moving them constantly may prevent the growth of mangrove saplings which would get destroyed by the moving wood.
Some 'after' pictures...
Hopefully, more trash does not float in to cover up the mangrove again.
Trash from the hand of man is a problem for all of us. Out of sight is not out of mind.
We need to take better care of our environment and encourage others around us to do so as well.
Associated links :
http://coastalcleanup.wordpress.com/2011/09/20/backing-up-nus-foray-into-lim-chu-kang-east-mangrove/
