Cleaning up our act

In 2008, Michelle Bartolo started up That's Rubbish! - a group of volunteers intending to clean up Ghajn Tuffieha beach over the winter months. Though the Malta Tourism Authority do clean up the beach during the summer, the area is largely left to its own devices once the tourists leave for sunnier shores.

Clean-up teams of between five and 25 volunteers show up on a monthly basis to remove anywhere between eight and 80 bags of rubbish from the beach.

"Because the beach is environmentally protected we can't take vehicles down to the beach and have to carry all the rubbish up all of those stairs," Michelle muses. "On the odd occasion when we have something really bulky, the kiosk owners let us use their pulley but for the most part, we rely on muscle power."

Bartolo was working for the MTA and the Gaia Foundation, which looked after the beach in 2008. However she found that not enough was being done to protect the beach from an environmental standpoint.

"I have always had a soft spot for that particular beach having had many great times there, but there are also a number of other reasons I chose that particular one. Due to access problems, the beach is unattended during the winter and as it is hit hard by surf a lot of rubbish washes up onto the beach.

"The idea is to remove the rubbish before it gets pulled back into the sea where it does a lot of damage."

During some of the monthly cleanups, Bartolo and her party have found various common and endangered species that were killed by plastic thrown into the sea - a Shearwater, for instance, strangled by a plastic rope, and a turtle suffocated by a plastic bag.

For the first eight months, Bartolo cleaned up this beach pretty much on her own with one or two friends who would go down to the beach to watch,  as picking up rubbish was not really their thing.

Disheartened, Bartolo was about to give the beach a final clean up before packing it in when people started coming and showing interest, which gave her fresh enthusiasm that was being fast depleted. 

Today, the regulars who attend beach clean-ups form part of a community and take part in the yoga session Bartolo holds at the end of the clean up, followed by a meal and some other entertainment. They also form part of other voluntary organisations such as BirdLife and Funny Farm Horse Rescue.

"When the weather is good, it turns out to be a fantastic day with everyone enjoying the sun and the sea, but when it is wicked and wild it can also be fantastic fun. It just depends if you are an outdoors type of person.

 "Unfortunately most of the volunteers are expats, but that may be due to the fact that I am a foreigner myself. Though some of the younger members are half Maltese I would like to see some more locals taking responsibility for their own island."

Born in Malta, Bartolo has come and gone between Malta and Canada, unable to decide which to call home.

"Canada has things Malta doesn't, and Malta has things Canada doesn't. One thing that Canada does have is a need to protect the environment, which I hold dear to my heart."

Though Bartolo considers her group of volunteers as an organisation, she has not registered That's Rubbish! as an NGO.

"For the moment I want to keep things simple. We simply meet up and clean up and enjoy the community, in which we all share."

The future may not always be as simple, as Bartolo intends taking the clean-up to schools. Having already approached a number of schools there seems to be general interest in clean-ups: not only the beach, but other areas too.

"It is really important to get the kids educated on the damage plastic in the sea is causing and give them the responsibility of cleaning up. We have organised a few kids' clean-ups and they are all very enthusiastic and ask a lot of questions. I only hope that they will succeed in teaching their parents to do the same!

"It is the kids who need to take responsibility for what they are throwing away and how they are disposing of their rubbish. It is important for kids to grow up respecting the great outdoors as they do their own homes. If you wouldn't throw it on the floor in your home, then don't do it outside."

Though every person can do their bit to make the environment a cleaner place, Michelle would like to see more help from government and large organisations.

"More bins that can take more than one bottle of water would encourage people not to litter, and even better bins that allow people to separate their rubbish to be recycled."

The next clean up will take place at Ghajn Tuffieha on 8 January between 12.00pm and 2.00pm. Volunteers from all walks of life are welcome. Gloves and bags will be provided. For more information visit www.thatsrubbishmalta.com or find them on Facebook.

The work carried out by That's Rubbish is done completely by volunteers with the help of sponsors including Corona, Defined Branding and Intervision.

For more information visit http://www.thatsrubbishmalta.com/ or find them on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/groups/18623797107/