Beach Clean-Up Highlights Importance of

Protecting Marine Environment

Release Date : 16 Feb 2015

Students from schools across Sharjah swapped their textbooks for garbage bags and
gloves today and collected litter from the shoreline around Al Mamzar Beach.

They were joined by two teams of divers from Sharjah Police Rescue Unit and Sharjah
Aquarium who gathered discarded waste from the seabed during the Marine Environment
Clean-Up, organised by the Sharjah Museums Department (SMD) as part of its Because
We Care social responsibility initiative.

The annual beach clean-up aims to highlight the importance of protecting Sharjahs marine
environment by highlighting the amount and types of waste people discard around the
coast-line.

Its amazing just how much waste we find each year, and it really shows that we need to
change the publics mentality, said Rashid Al Shamsi, SMDs Acting Curator of Sharjah
Aquarium. Todays beach clean-up is about educating the next generation that its wrong
to use our precious coastline as a place to discard of garbage and unwanted items.

Our hope is that they take away with them an understanding of how harmful all this waste
is to the marine environment, and spread the word by talking to their friends and
families.

About 120 students, supervised by a small team of community volunteers, took part in
the clean-up. As they scoured the shoreline, divers from Sharjah Aquarium and Sharjah
Police Rescue Unit searched the seabed.

A crane was on hand to help the diving teams lift any particularly heavy submerged items.
In previous years, they have recovered objects including sofas, chairs and even an
abandoned boat.

All the waste collected during todays search will be weighed and sent for recycling or
disposal by Beeah, the waste management company. Last years clean-up uncovered an
incredible five tons and 150 kilograms of waste from the area around Kalba Port.

The students also got the chance to take part in recycling workshops and an educational
Awareness Gallery hosted on-site.

The Marine Environment Clean-Up was organised by SMD and Sharjah Aquarium in
cooperation with several partners including the Ministry of Environment and Water, the
Sharjah Environment and Natural Reserves Authority, Sharjah Educational Zone and the
Happiest Nation Volunteering Team, Sharjah Police, Sharjah Civil Defense and Emirates
Diving Centre.

Manal Ataya, Director General of the SMD, said: We are proud to once again be working
with our partners to provide this successful event promoting a responsible attitude toward
the marine eco-system.

At the Sharjah Museums Department, we believe our role as guardians of Sharjahs

heritage starts with preserving our natural environment.

Education is part of the solution, and through our Because We Care campaign we try to
foster a strong sense of social and environmental responsibility among citizens,
particularly younger members of the community.

Since launching Because We Care in 2009, we have staged almost 200 events and
projects aimed at promoting responsible citizenship.