beach clean ups & litter audits

When Save the Beach started as a movement in 2007, the protection and beautification of the beaches were the priorities.

Due to the fast development of Villimale’ Island, the population increased quickly, and the misinformation allowed the local community to throw all their garbage and waste on the beaches.

Culturally, beaches have always been seen as areas where to clean the dishes and throw the leftovers into the ocean. But with the arrival of plastic bags and containers, people started to throw their garbage with all the bags, directly on the beach, not knowing the huge impact this would bring on the environment.

The only way to understand and quantify the amount of garbage in an area is to do a litter audit. First of all, an area of monitoring is determined, and then the first step is to clean that area and audit all the garbage found, divided by materials and fixed categories, also, each item will be weighted. After one week of not-intervention in the area, another audit will highlight how much was littered in one week and what kind of items were found.

This method will allow, not only to determine the quantity of each waste category but also what kind of waste is present and the provenience of the waste. Only by knowing the source of the garbage, it is possible to take action.

After that first litter audit, 40 bins have been placed all around the beaches and after many many years of awareness programmes, clean-ups and litter audits, today we see the effects on the community!

In the past years, our area of intervention expanded thanks to our partnership with MBRC the ocean and Parley Maldives.

We organise one clean-up per week, involving schools, volunteers and tourists who are willing to help!

During our clean-ups, the recyclable plastic is collected in different bags and it is sent to Parley Maldives which will ship it to be recycled abroad.

Also, we weigh the general waste as well as the recyclable plastic, this will allow us to quantify how much waste is thrown or washed on the beaches.

We are grateful to have the opportunity to work with so many people and we truly believe that together we can make a difference!