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Today, I and a team of 25 dedicated volunteers took to Plazhi I Currilave in Durres to clean up the trash that lines the otherwise beautiful shoreline. Over the course of three hours, we cleaned up an estimated 500kg of trash into 63 120l rubbish bags. This was our second official clean up of the summer season, the first took place in Durres at the end of June.
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When my alarm went off at 7 am this morning, I cannot say that I was full of joy to be getting up to carry out manual labour in 30 plus degree heat, but I dragged myself out of bed, got on the minibus and headed off on my way. We were expecting a lower turnout this time due to it being August and with many people being on their summer holiday’s or hiding inside because of the heat, but I was pleasantly surprised to see a pretty good number of attendees of various ages and nationalities.
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We descended upon the unsuspecting beach and got to work, clearing all plastic, metal, and other rubbish from the sand and dunes. Many tourist and locals that sat chilling out on sunbeds were a little perplexed to see us combing the beach for rubbish but some even joined in. I was really happy to have an older Albanian woman and three Italian tourists put on gloves, grab a bag, and get stuck in. The Italian/Albanian toursits said they were embarrased to sit back and do nothing whilst others cleaned up the beach around them- kudos and thankyou ladies!
Some of the beachfront bars congratulated us on our work and one even gave us free refreshments as a thank you for the good work we were carrying out. Hopefully, seeing a team of volunteers cleaning the beach will encourage them to be a little more responsible when it comes to disposing of their rubbish.
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Amongst the bags, straws, bottles and endless cigarette ends, there was one particular bit of rubbish that made me angry- someone had set off a confetti canon, I assume the night before, and a large section of the beach was strewn with brightly coloured metallic confetti. This stuff was everywhere and took forever to pick up- of course, if we had left it, it would have all ended up in the sea, causing a danger to marine life. I just can’t get my head around why someone would deliberately litter in this way- why not just use paper confetti? Why do you feel the need to deliberately pollute the beach and the ocean for approximately 2 seconds worth of sparkle? These ridiculous displays, along with balloon and lantern releases are on my “to do list” when it comes to getting things banned- it is littering plain and simple, and it is not acceptable.
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We were joined by Bicycle Durres, a local organisation with conservation and environmental issues being of great importance to them. I also want to say THANKYOU to all of the volunteers that gave up part of their weekend to take care of a part of the country. With ages ranging from 7 years old, and even three dogs joining us for the event, it was great to see such an enthusiastic turnout.
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I had contacted the Mayor of Durres several times to ask if he wanted to join us or if he would mind donating some water and gloves to us for the event (we fund it all ourselves) but unfortunately he was too busy to reply to any of my messages.
Each time I organise one of these clean-ups, it gives me hope that we can continue to change peoples mindset and to make them more conscious of their actions when it comes to environmental responsibility.
We will be organising another event at a more in-land location at the end of September, I hope to see you there!
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