St Martin cleaned up
A total of 300 volunteers on and off the island yesterday hit the shores of St Martin's Island to clean up this picturesque coral biodiversity.
The human effort collected some 600 kilograms of trash and debris off the island.
More than 200 locals of the island volunteered at the event jointly organised by Coca-Cola Bangladesh, Ocean Conservancy International and Kewkradong Bangladesh, said a press release.
Nurul Alam, chairman of St Martin's Island, inaugurated the program that was organised as part of celebrations of International Coastal Cleanup, the world's largest volunteering effort to help protect ocean, rivers and lakes.
Addressing the occasion, Debasish Deb, country manager of Coca-Cola Far East Ltd, said, “It is our responsibility to take the lead in the community to demonstrate that trash should not reach our oceans.”
He, however, said not to limit the cleanup efforts to coastal communities.
“Keeping our ocean free from trash is one of the easiest ways to make the ocean more resilient against other threats like climate change,” said Vikki Spruill, president and CEO of Ocean Conservancy International.
So far, around 7.8 million volunteers have removed over 135 million pounds of trash from the shoreline of more than hundred countries of the world, the release said.
St. Martin's is a small continental island on Bay of Bengal and its located separated from the mainland on the southern most tip of Bangladesh.
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