The Regional Centre of Expertise (RCE) Kuching and UCSI University Sarawak Campus has successfully organized a Beach Clean-up at the Pasir Pandak Beach on 16 September, 2023. The student community of the university, RCE Kuching Youth Ambassadors and staff from the Student Affairs and Alumni Department took part in this event.

This event is initiated by Reef Check Malaysia, an organization committed to protecting and conserving the coral reefs of Malaysia.  It is a nationwide programme organized to support the International Coastal Clean-Up (ICC) 2023 Day.

Besides cleaning along the Pasir Pandak Beach, which is a popular tourist spot in Kuching, the objectives of the event were to engage youth in realising the seriousness of pollution of both rivers and oceans. The types of trash collected were recorded for coastal conversation initiatives.  This event also aimed at increasing civic awareness amongst UCSI students and Youth Ambassadors on the importance of clean coasts to the entire marine ecosystem, linking it to RCE Kuching’s programme of “River for Everybody”, which also has a 5R programme aiming at controlling waste from land sources.

During the clean-up process, the volunteers collected a whopping 862 kgs of trash along the 2 kilometers of beach. All 2446 of the items collected were recorded using the Clean Swell App which can be downloaded via Google Play App Store.  From the trash data records, to the surprise of many volunteers, there were 384 plastic bottles collected that morning. Apart from the plastic bottles, there were a lot of cigarette butts, plastic bottle caps, plastic bags, straws, aluminum cans, gloves and masks and even food wrappers found around the area. This has educated the volunteers and raised awareness amongst volunteers about trash issues at the beach and hopefully will motivate more actions from the public and other agencies to protect our beaches.

The volunteers were grateful that they could participate in this meaningful event. Mr. Nazeri Idi, the Ketua Kampung for Pasir Pandak was very supportive and also praised our volunteers on their commitment and continuous efforts to educate the Kuching society to be more responsible global citizens.  The organisers were pleased with the turnout of youth volunteers who participated in this beach clean-up event. “Small acts, when multiplied by millions of people, can transform the world.”

For more photos on this event, visit the gallery page of RCE Kuching at https://rce.ucsiuniversity.edu.my/photo-gallery/