Broadstairs is a beautiful town with lovely beaches. The town, and its local community, does a lot to keep the environment clean, for example having volunteer litter pickers, tree planting activities and coastal projects to focus on our beaches and wildlife. However, rubbish still exists. Some of it comes from the ships and much of it gets spread by our seagulls raiding the rubbish bins. What’s more, beaches all over the world suffer from tourists who are not always careful about how they dispose of their rubbish. This is, perhaps, a drawback of the increasing popularity of our beautiful local beaches. Our lovely students from the Kantonsschule Olten wanted to help and so volunteered to spend an afternoon on the beach and in the town to help clean it. The following blog has been written by two students who took part in the project.
STUDENT COMMUNITY LITTER CLEARING PROJECT
While deciding where in England we would like to stay for our language-exchange, articles of a beautiful seaside, of open and green parks and wide streets drew our attention to the charming town of Broadstairs. Yet none of the articles mentioned one thing we encountered here, as in many seaside towns: litter. In the otherwise flourishing parks we found some plastic bags and empty water bottles dotting the streets as well as glass bottles buried in the sands of Broadstairs beach. We decided that we wanted to help the local community to maintain this otherwise picturesque area. We didn’t want to turn a blind eye to all the litter we passed by. That’s where the idea of our litter-collecting action originated.
Prior to organising the details of our action, we needed to find support in Hilderstone College. Thankfully, the college recognised the necessity of cleaning the environment, especially as it is a coastal city. Because of the uncomplicated way Hilderstone College reacted to our idea, we could soon sit together and discuss the specifics of our project. As a group we brainstormed for ideas, all of us wanting to clean up and do something for our planet and conserve the beauty of the landscape.
Even before coming here our class was set on compensating for our flight, but with this activity we also tried to raise awareness of the growing problem of littering, an issue that needs addressing all around the globe.
Facing the reality made everyone comprehend just how fragile our environment is and how easily it can be disturbed. All these thoughts and feelings invigorated us, and so we went, prepared with litter pickers, rubbish bags and a buzzing motivation to clean the streets of Broadstairs.
Our project caught the attention of several passers-by. They expressed their gratitude and their wish for more frequent street cleaning, and encouraged and supported us. We collected rubbish at the beach, which was fun because we met a couple of people, and they started chatting with us or even gave us their rubbish. They really appreciated our work. To our delight the beach wasn’t too polluted.
We summarise the sad truth about people’s laziness. We found a considerable amount of plastic, cigarette butts and glass bottles as well as aluminium cans. The most striking observation was the rubbish left only a few metres from the next litter bin.
We are delighted to have had the opportunity to help the environment and the community of Broadstairs. A great thank you for supporting us in our project goes to the Hilderstone College and the Broadstairs Town Team for providing us with the necessary tools.
Click here to watch the group’s video!
