International Coastal Clean-up Day 2019
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Project Overview
Every year thousands of tons of garbage wind up the seas and oceans with about 60% of that being composed of plastic material. Plastics especially, they last a very long time in the ocean, and are in such abundance that there are more than 46,000 individual pieces of plastic litter for every square mile of ocean. Plastics are very hazardous to human life, marine life, killing more than a million birds and over 100,000 seals, turtles, whales and an immense number of fish in our oceans. Coastal cleans encourage us to get out to our beaches and help to limit this problem by cleaning up the garbage that has washed up on the shore and those left by visitors every day.
ASCOA (Association for Community Awareness) is a non-governmental organization whose mission is to improve the quality of life for underserved communities by building self-reliance. The health of our waterways and community is indicative of the health of our planet. That is one of the things ASCOA takes to heart as they are committed to creating significant improvements to promote sustainability at local, regional and even global levels.
Considering that there has been a lot of accumulating and littering of trash and debris on coastlines in recent times especially the Limbe coastline of the Atlantic Ocean in Cameroon, ASCOA decided to carry out a two-phased project to clean up the coast line of the said area. The project involved the total cleaning of all sorts of debris that could be seen on the coastline, with particular interest on plastics and its accessories. Carrying out a survey, it was discovered that no other Civil Society Organization in the country had dared to clean the coastal area apart from ASCOA as it was the second time the organization was carrying out such an act for sustainable development.
Owing to the amount of debris found on this particular coastline, ASCOA has decided to put this project as a permanent project that will be carried out continuously until other civil society organisations join the train and make a positive change to the society.
What ASCOA accomplished getting support from The Pollination Project.
The Pollination Project grant was indeed a buster to the project. The project ran in two phases with phase one taking place on the 20st July 2019 and the second phase on the 14th September 2019. During the first phase of the project, we had 75 volunteers, two civil society organisations, (ASCOA and Ada of GEE), a local company specialised in urban cleaning (HYSACAM – Hygiene and Sanitation Cameroon), the Fishermen association of down beach Limbe and the Divisional Delegation of the Ministry of Environment and Protection of Nature (MINEPDED). During the first phase of the project, we were able to clean debris from the coastline amounting to 20 tons, taking into consideration as we were informed that one garbage truck is equivalent to 10 tons and two of these trucks were filled keeping aside the plastic bottles and lids that were our priority. During this first phase therefore, we had five major category of actors that took part in the project leading to the accomplishment of the above mentioned results.
During the second phase, the number of civil society organisations increased following an online publication of the project and the request for more hands to help out. Three more civil society organisations came in – United Voices for Community Development (UVCD), Clean Cameroon and Africa United. The number of volunteers increased to 114 and the debris cleaned increased to 50 tons without considering the plastics that were a major priority. We are proud to say that the TPP grant has actually made us to realize our dreams and to get more people involved in the coastal cleanup exercise as well as creating awareness about the importance of a clean ocean.