College Record 2019

a little shelter on the beach and then would start picking up plastic. There were set categories.
One of us would be picking up flip-flops, a second plastic bottles or fishing gear, and the third
was picking up miscellaneous items. On other days we’d just put everything in sacks and sort
through it later, when it was too hot to be on the beach. Around nine o’clock it would get
so hot that all the giant tortoises would disappear for shelter. From 11:30 to 14:30 the heat
would get so intense it was hard to keep working. Imagine tropical temperatures, high humidity,
no shade, the sand heating up, and your carrying heavy sacks full of plastic. It was like being in
an oven. If we were close to our base, we would go back around noon, make some lunch and
try to relax. Some people would sleep, but I found it too hot because my bunk was just underneath
the corrugated iron roof. The heat would usually break around two, so we’d go and pick
up plastic for another four hours. After that, we’d go back to base, cook dinner and get ready
for the next day. Some nights we had to take baby turtles back to the sea, because our lights
would accidentally attract them to our camp.
During the second phase, I was part of a team of three that supported Sky News as they
filmed a documentary for the Aldabra Clean Up Project. It meant helping the crew, setting up
tents, cleaning up the nearby beaches, both on and off camera. We all were interviewed by Sky
live on air.The other nine volunteers were moving the plastic we’d picked up along the coastline
to central pick-up points on key beaches, helped by the Seychelles Coast Guard.
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The final stage was getting all the plastic onto boats, which was where the Seychelles Coast
Guard really helped: they had much more training and experience in dealing with big waves
and boats in challenging situations. And there were a lot of them: an extra thirty people makes
a huge difference. We would be sprinting up and down the beach dragging the plastic to them.
It was like interval training, really. We had to be very quick, but the skippers knew what they
were doing. So that was that; you’d finish a beach, go on to the next one, wait until the waves
were right and start the process all over again.’
What happened with the plastic after putting it on the boats?
‘The 25 tonnes of plastic we cleared was put on containerships, which went back to Mahé to
be stored in a warehouse there. The reason we separated the plastic into those different categories
was because, before the project started, certain people and organisations were asked if
they would be able to do anything with it when collected. A chunk of it was taken away to be
used for educational outreach and art projects. The aim is to send PET plastics to a PET
recycling factory on Mahé. Environmental charities were contacted to see if they could repurpose
the fishing gear, for ships that want to fish in a sustainable way. But it has been a bit unclear
what is happening to the rest of it. One of the problems is that recycling plastic is actually
very difficult. Once it has been in the ocean and has started to break down, my understanding
is that it can be almost impossible to recycle it. It’s much better for the plastic to be stored in a
warehouse in Mahé than floating in the ocean, but we must decide what we want to do with
it. Fortunately, there are a lot of conversations happening internationally, asking similar questions,
now that the oceans are polluted. Even if you get the plastic out of the oceans, where
does it go? It’s an ongoing issue, but at least people are talking about it.’
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COLLEGE RECORD 2019