Only 4 person liked the idea , agreed to join in that program , cause cleaning our coast was quite an unorthodox invitation to all , I requested , placed my logic , No , dint get more than that four.
It was the beginning story of today's successful International Coastal Cleanup 2007 Bangladesh chapter. ICC is internationally organized all over world each and every year by The Ocean Conservancy. This event chinch the title of world's largest and oldest voluntary activity where people will come , gather and try to collect marine debris around the shore. This is the concept of this day. This one day event may not be able to clean whole year's debris from the coast and more apparently the volunteers are not trying to do that . A day at the beach can make a world of difference – believe in that way , if we start it now , for a day , can create that awareness for the whole year!
This time around 100 peoples , it was 2006. There were more to join but month of September is the month of natural disaster for Bangladesh . Almost each and every year our shore line inhabitants face this calamity. Sea was rough; all fishing boats are requested to return to safe places, beach goers were not allowed to jump into the sea. That was the fact of last year's scenario. Still volunteers from Dhaka joined with local peoples and collected number of 40 different types of debris. Due to bad weather we could collect all most 20000 number of marine debris from our shore line (ICC published Annual report 2006 Bangladesh chapter).
This year , 2007 , we are quite fit , quite vigorous for the day. Though country has been flooded badly and sudden increase of water flooded the north and other districts again. We shall over come , we proved the before and still… our backpacker community friends camp up with a mutual fund as relief for the flood victims. Two big responsibilities were too close to merge or squire the pressure on.
Everything is set , sponsors , alliances , supports are set. It was just before the fixed date , evening 1820 local time , got a query from sponsor , hay do I know that a big massive tsunami is coming to hit by the mid night? Rush in to the net , BBC weather , Yahoo weather , CNN , AP , AFP and obviously the local news. Yes , its true , tsunami strikes at Sumatra and coming towards Indian Ocean . So Thailand , Singapore , Myanmar coast is in danger but where is Bangladesh 's name? Nowhere in the shooting list!
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Facts of 2006
Top 10 debries*
- Bags | 35.8%
- Cigarettes/
Cigarette Filters | 25.9%
- Food Wrappers and
Containers | 15.0%
- Tobacco Packaging/
Wrappers | 7.4%
- Cigarette Lighters | 2.1%
- Pull Tabs | 2.0%
- Beverage Cans | 2.0%
- Straws/Stirrers | 1.7%
- Caps/Lids|
1.6%
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Cups/Plates/Forks/
Knives/Spoons | 1.1%
But as for safety national government seal the costal belt for everyone. According to our local source from Department of Environment said they could not find anything symptom that may refer to any presence of Tsunami around the Cox's Bazar peninsula.
Me , as the country coordinator on behalf of Kewkradong Bangladesh , scheduled to be at the cleanup site by tomorrow morn , finding no other alternative , what will I do? Four months effort , Hundreds of peoples , so many plans… will that go in a vain? Looking for last help , if media resolves the hype of tsunami here! Whole night expected only this single news.
At last by the morning , got the news , no tsunami stroked Bangladesh by the mid night and there is no chance of hitting by today! But another problem , as we are moderate Muslim , regulation of Ramadan on the society is not that strict but every body's will to fest on the beginning! So we have missed few many valued volunteers on this issue.
On the appointed day , hundreds of local peoples , school kids joined together at Labonee Beach (Cox's Bazar) , we are not professional but we have got little experience last year and before. Spilt the crowed in groups and deployed over the shore. Day long program took a break during noon as Friday mid day prayer is holly for us.
We have started sorting the debris after the break. Alas it was quite huge! Thousands of polithin bag! Millions of cigarette butts! We are still counting and waiting for all data cards!
If we think about size of the bags of our collected debris , its lot more than last year! Each of them was heavy to carry! So , we did some thing , isn't it? Isn't it a pride in the name of our coast? So say it , let's do it again!
Welcome ICC 2008.
*ICC published Annual report 2006 Bangladesh chapter
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