CCAC X PubSoc: CCAs in Limelight Series
16 teenagers walking with a pair of tongs armed in one hand and a rice sack in the other was a sight sure to have raised the eyebrows of passersby. Yet upon closer inspection, any doubts would have swiftly been dissolved and replaced by relief and admiration: the group was simply conducting a much needed beach clean up.
On the 13th of December 2021, the 16 members of the Outdoor Education Students’ Club (OESC) took to East Coast Park (ECP) for their beach clean up. Koh Jiong Hao (21S7F) explains this comes in alignment with OESC’s unofficial goals of “(making) a difference for the natural environment” and to “leave a place cleaner than (when they) found it”.
But whilst beach clean ups are often done without much guidance, this was not the case here. The OESC members were joined by Yasser, a coordinator of the East Coast Beach Plan (a local group frequently organising beach clean-ups). “He provided us with his expertise on which areas of ECP needed the most cleaning”, Jiong Hao gratefully mentions. He certainly made their efforts more targeted and meticulous in achieving a true and thorough beach clean up.
Though generally rewarding, the cleanup experience still proved taxing with its fair share of challenges. Lim Tia Kiat (21S7F) notes that the biggest difficulty was “the mental aspect of (the) cleanup — whenever (they) felt like (they) had cleaned up a large section of the beach, (they) looked on to realise more trash on the beach.” Given the overwhelming amount of people who frequently litter on the beach, it was only natural for the OESC members to feel disheartened knowing that the beach would remain strewn with litter even after their laborious cleanup efforts.
Despite such setbacks, the group persevered and derived comfort in the knowledge that they were jointly working towards a cleaner community one way or another. “Our efforts, no matter how small, would still contribute to the overall cleanliness of the beach in some way,” Tia Kiat remarks, adding that they ultimately managed to collect over 40kg of trash.
Members tying up their rice sacks filled with trash.
The clean up also certainly extended its impacts to the members’ hearts as evidenced by Emily Megan Ho’s (21S70) three words summary of her experience: “consequential, memorable, will-do-it-again”. She recalls the striking instance where she had a “literally ‘high’ moment” through “smelling fermented alcohol from an aluminium drink can (they) picked up”. Further reflection prompted her to share her insight that “societal issues such as excessive consumption of cigarette smoke and alcohol due to stress could be inherently interlinked with environmental issues like beach littering”.
All in all, the group had strong praise for their cleanup experience and hope to encourage others to participate in similar experiences. While some may be slightly hesitant about participating in such activities, the OESC members believe firmly that the overall cleanup experience is abundant with benefits, from lightening cleaners’ workloads to increasing the cleanliness level of the beach.
As OESC demonstrated, everyone plays an important role in upkeeping our community’s cleanliness. Let’s all work towards a cleaner and greener Singapore together!
Written by: Alina Tan (21A14) and Rowena Tan (21A12)
Edited by: Hu Chen Wei (21A15)
Photos by: Outdoor Education Students’ Club
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