Sail Training at Middle Island: Linking in Sustainability and Plastics Education with Youth Courses W O RD S A ND IM AGES: LUKE VA N D ER K A MP
Sailing
With the return of the popular Youth Watersports Experience Week for teens and the WaterKidz Adventure Week for Opti sailors, the opportunity to incorporate sustainability education presented itself. During these courses, the sailors were given the opportunity to explore the issue of sea plastics and develop ideas to reduce their footprint and influence others to do the same. The day-long activities started with a discussion (led often by the sailors) on how much plastic waste is generated in our everyday lives and what can be done to reduce their own plastic footprint at home.
Clockwise from top left: 60+ Kilos of plastic removed from Wong Chuk Kok Beach; Beach games after the cleanup; A job well done; Exploring Waglan island
eady to see the extent of the problem with their own eyes and armed with rubbish bags, gloves and tongs, the sailors were ready for the beach cleanup. Going via RIB, our youth sailors have run beach cleanups on Round Island, Wong Chuk Kok Beach (Lamma), Turtle Beach (Lamma) and Po Toi over the course of the shortened summer. The common factor amongst the beaches was that they were off the beaten track and the majority of the rubbish was not left there by people on
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the beach. Asked to just focus on picking up plastic items on the beach, many bags were filled in a short time. The key message coming from all the kids at the end of the cleanup was that they wanted to tell their friends and family about the experience and how they had seen the link between waste in our everyday lives and the spread of plastic in the ocean with their own eyes. In one morning alone, our youth sailors were able to pick up over 60 kilos of plastic waste alone on Wong Chuk
Kok beach. After each successful cleanup, the sailors got their reward in the form of a fun afternoon at a quiet beach and a longer RIB ride back to Middle Island giving them the chance to explore parts of Hong Kong they have not seen before! Going forward, the topic of sustainability will be included as a core topic in the Sail Training syllabus at all levels for both youth and adult courses. Conserving our marine environment is a topic that the entire Middle Island team is
