Why you should 'Dive Against Debris'...
Why are divers becoming Environmental Activists? What do programs like the Project AWARE, Dive Against Debris do to help protect the oceans’ coral reefs? How can you do an underwater clean up if you are a not a professional diver? If you are asking yourself these questions, then you have come to the right place!
Marine debris has become an ‘unnatural disaster’ of epic proportions. This is probably no surprise to the many scuba divers out there that have discovered pollution in its many forms strewn about what would otherwise be a pristine underwater paradise. In places like In Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand the problem has caused potentially irreparable damage. In January of this year (2019) some beaches on Bali had to be closed to the public due to the amount of rubbish that the monsoon rains had washed into the ocean.
Unfortunately, to the majority of the world’s population, it is an invisible epidemic. All of us unconsciously, or unwillingly play our part in the problem on a daily basis. Every plastic bag we take, every straw we use, and every food wrapper we open, has a very good chance of ending up in the ocean. You might think that living far from the sea precludes you from this, but due to poor waste management, and unregulated offshore disposal protocols, that isn’t always the case.
Now more than ever, tourists and local divers alike, are becoming aware of this growing crisis, and are starting to take action. Unlike other global catastrophes, marine debris isn’t an issue that we can rely on governments or large non-profits to take care of for us. Of course, supporting causes like Trash Free Seas Alliance, Ghost Gear, Green Fins, 4 Ocean, Project AWARE, Reef Check or SEAS is a great step towards combating the problem. These organizations are implementing solutions to combat marine pollution through numerous programs.
#DoSomething
Scuba Divers are natural ambassadors of the sea!
Some of us like to take things one step further by getting our hands dirty and taking Direct Action. If you fall into this category, or are even just curious about what it takes to do an underwater clean up, then you are a Dive Hero in our eyes and this was written for you!
World Oceans day is every year on June 8. What better way to celebrate than by cleaning up your local dive site?
We have had some amazing times doing these reef clean ups, but have also been surprised that more people aren’t taking the initiative to organize them without it being an official event. So we felt compelled to write this step-by-step guide to show just how simple it can be
Below we will provide some personal insights and experiences while we discuss the specific roles of both organisers and participants of all levels. To make this complete guide easier to navigate we created a menu and links to quickly jump around to other parts of this post you may want to find.
Underwater Clean Up Action Guide:
Choose your site (what works and what doesn’t)
Partnering with a dive center or resort (especially if you don’t work there)
Why we do it
How we go about it
Safety and Best Practises
Step 3 Take Action (The BEST PART!)
Roles of dive leaders and participants
Situational awareness
Common problems
Weigh it
Sort it
Record it (with photos)
How to report your findings
Proper disposal
Bonus: Step 6 Broadcast and Include others
Share what you have done
Encourage others to join in
Call to action, taking the next steps
Let’s jump in, shall we?
Step 1: Organise your clean up
This can be as simple as grabbing a few friends and your diving gear, or if you’re really ambitious you can try to break the world record like these 633 divers did on June 15th 2019 when they cleaned up thousands of pounds of rubbish in Florida.
Most of you reading this are probably interested in getting anywhere from 10 to 30 volunteers together for a few hours of empowering environmental conservation and a few laughs along the way. That’s perfect, and you shouldn’t let the size of your group deter you from taking action, because the minimum number of participants required is just TWO PEOPLE! Even non divers can participate by doing a simultaneous Beach Clean Up like our good friends at Trash Hero are known for!
Choose your site:
We suggest you choose a site that you are familiar with. If possible do a few dives there first to evaluate if it’s even a good location to do a clean up. However, even if you don’t find much pollution you can still record your findings to world pollution maps to indicate that the reef is debris free. If you’re not familiar with the dive site or area we strongly encourage you to partner with local divers when organizing your clean up dive.
Here are some good qualities to keep in mind when selecting a dive site and some things to consider avoiding. These are just based on our personal experience having conducted quite a few of these types of events. By no means are these insights complete, nor will they apply to every situation.
Things that work
- Depth of 5-30 Meters on a gentle sloping dive site
- Near the outlet of a small river or stream
- Nearby human activity just as a jetty or popular beach (beware of hazards)
- Popular areas where fishing nets are used
Things to avoid
- Boat Traffic
- Underwater hazards
- Low visibility
- Strong currents
A word of caution about hazards when choosing the best time and dive site. You will want to consider the experience level of the divers participating in your group so as to not overwhelm new or inexperienced divers with conditions they may not be prepared to face. Strong currents and low visibility can be managed by some divers better than others, so account for those factors along with bottom composition and potential boat traffic when considering the best dive site for your dive. Timing the dive with local tide tables and maps of water flow is also advisable.
Jetties and wharves that are popular for fishing can be a large source of marine pollution but if boats and anglers are present, it may be prudent to have some surface support on hand to make others aware of the divers below and what they are doing. Most of the time you will encounter a lot of curiosity and general support towards what you are trying to accomplish.
Gather the necessary tools and equipment:
In full disclosure, the organized underwater clean ups we are most familiar with are doing a “Dive Against Debris” which is a Project AWARE program. We are aware that other organizations such as Green Fins have similar programs that they conduct, but for the purposes of this guide we will use our experience with the Dive Against Debris materials and procedures. Our apologies if we sound like a Project AWARE ‘sales person’ at times. We would LOVE IT if anyone has experience with other such programs and is willing to comment on it below or send us an email with more information.
EQUIPMENT
You will want to start by ensuring that everyone has adequate diving equipment and a good supply of tanks. When we have conducted these events, we were blessed to be able to offer volunteer divers a set of rental equipment and a tank FREE OF CHARGE! This of course probably had something to do with us having a good turn out. Even when people want to do something to give back to the ocean that they love spending time in, the cost of diving can be a limitation for some.
If you can find a local dive center to help you sponsor the event, they may be able to set you up with a limited number of equipment sets and tanks free of charge. When you let them know that you will be putting their name and logo on the E-vites (adverts) and tagging them in social media posts you shouldn’t be surprised if more than one local dive center is willing to help you with your cause. (More on this below)
Besides the basic equipment needed to dive you will want to consider having some gloves for the divers because some of the debris they might encounter may have sharp edges. Encourage divers to bring their own or an inexpensive pair of gardening gloves might just do the trick. For the same reason we like to cut a big “X” in the bottom of some plastic water bottles we find off the shore and give at least one to each buddy pair. This can be used to put any sharp objects inside such as fishing hooks, but naturally you will still want to handle these with care.
A Dive Knife can be especially helpful for removing fishing line and ghost nets so at a minimum one cutting tool per buddy team is advisable.
A Compass and Computer is always the best practise for modern divers, and this is no exception. The practise of two divers sharing one computer is not an ideal situation. If you do not have enough computers to go around, you should evaluate the situation. If prudent to do so, have divers with no computer closely teamed up with more experienced divers equipped with a computer, and position them on the shallower part of the reef. Use your best judgment in this situation.
Last but not least, an SMB is recommended for each diver or the diver with the most experience using an SMB in each dive team. The specifics of your dive site and conditions will determine the best use of marker buoys for your situation.
Dive Against Debris Survey Guide
The nice people at Project AWARE have made this one easy. Just head over to the Dive Against Debris page on the Project AWARE website and you can download this as a PDF.
The guide will give you in-depth detailed instructions on the process of conducting the dive and recording the results.
Dive Against Debris Marine Debris Identification Guide
You can also download this guide from Project AWARE or use the digital version of it in the Dive Against Debris App for Android or iPhone. This guide will help you to identify the different items you might find underwater. It has 100 different categories each of which can cover a variety of similar types of debris. As you are sorting out the rubbish post dive, this will be a helpful reference.
Because you will probably be doing the sorting near the water, possibly with wet fingers, it might be a good idea to print this out. Normally we prefer to be paperless when possible, but certain things need to be weighed. If the paper gets wet it will dry out, but if your phone or tablet gets wet it may become E-waste, which is far worse for the environment.
Mesh Bags
Project Aware does have some nicely branded Dive Against Debris bags that not only work well, but they look good in photos. That being said just about any mesh bag will work. In a pinch you can use woven rice sacks, but we prefer to use bags made of natural fibers like burlap if you can source them. If you have enough for every diver to carry a bag that’s great but if they are in short supply one per buddy team works too.
Data Recording Card
You can get a specific waterproof data card with boxes provided for all of the information you will need to record your survey data. If you have applied to ‘Adopt A Divesite’ through Project Aware or purchased the full survey kit from them, then this will be included. That being said, a white board, or clipboard will suffice. Using the Dive Against Debris App will also cover this step.
Map of the Dive Site
While not completely necessary this may be really helpful during your pre dive briefing. A whiteboard is also a good option, so at least your divers will have a visual while you explain the plan of action
Partnering with a Dive Center or Resort (especially if you don’t work there)
We briefly touched on this topic when we explained equipment, but there are a few more points to share. If you are looking to organize a reef clean up and you don’t work for a dive center, or you are hoping to do this while you are visiting an area, plan well in advance.
For those of us fortunate enough to work in the diving industry, this process is much more straightforward. This doesn’t mean you should let your lack of access to tanks and equipment stop you. We suggest contacting several resorts and dive centers in your target area and gauging their interest. You will probably need to pitch your idea in detail to the owner or manager.
Don’t stop at one dive center either, because even if you get a ‘yes’ from one, other resorts may also wish to send a few of their staff along, or contribute tanks and rental equipment as well. This truly makes it more of a community effort as it should be.
Defer to their local knowledge and even though you may be organizing this action, be sure to respect the wishes and procedures of the dive centers you are partnered with. They will also want to be sure that everyone involved is a certified diver and has signed a liability waiver. There is actually a specific liability waiver you can download for a Dive Against Debris on the Project AWARE site.
Be responsible, by ensuring that all of their equipment is treated well and washed after the dive. Anyone that has ever spent much time around a dive operation will tell you that there is nothing worse than being stuck washing a bunch of equipment after a large group of people has been diving. Pitching in with this task will make the dive staff more likely to do a future event.
Spread the word!
Once you have the details confirmed, you can let everyone in the community and your online social networks know about the clean up. You might be surprised by how many people are willing to support the action. We used to hear things like “I try to always pick up rubbish on my dives, but there is just too much for me to do alone”. You can create a poster or infographic like this example. Add the names and logos of any dive centers that are supporting your event and post it to social media pages and dive forums. We have included a blank template at the bottom of this page.
Example of promoting an underwater clean up. (full size blank template available at the bottom of this page)
Step 2 Educate:
Why we do it?
This might seem like an obvious question, but even if you think everyone knows the answer to it you should still present some information to them. If you have read the Dive Against Debris survey guide then you won’t be short on facts about how the marine habitat is suffering from pollution. But your Activists will want to know the specific impact that their efforts are going to have with this conservation effort. Be sure to cover the things that organizations will do with the data you collect and highlight that this is so much more than just removing rubbish and ghost nets.
After the dive, empower them in other ways with a call to action if they are interested in taking things a step further by getting involved with campaigns to install rubbish catchers on waterways, improve waste management systems, or even petitioning local lawmakers in their area. We will go into this more in Step 6.
How we go about it
Take this opportunity to outline the steps you will be taking during the day. Your volunteers will be better able to participate if they know what is expected of them. Inform them of the different steps in the process and the safety precautions as well as what everyone’s role will be.
What do we pick up?
Be sure to discuss what to remove and what to leave behind. In general we want to remove all non-biodegradable items such as:
Take Away
- Plastics
- Rubber (including old tires)
- Metals
- Glass (if not already encrusted with growth)
- Wood items if they are not naturally occurring like parts of trees
- Batteries and auto parts
- Household items and small appliances
- Cigarette butts
- Diapers
- Fishing gear and ghost nets. Go into some details about cutting fishing line free from coral and not just pulling it which can cause harm to the reef.
Then cover the things that we should not remove. Some of these items should be noted and recovered later by experienced teams and may require special equipment and experience with things like lift bags.
Leave Behind
- Heavy objects (generally anything more than a kilo or two) or anything that will impact a divers ability to stay neutrally buoyant.
- Dangerous items which can be anything from jagged metal to hazardous waste.
- Items containing marine life. Many creatures make their homes out of the things humans discard. Carefully inspect items as you collect them to be sure nothing is living inside.
- Items that have been there so long that they have become part of the reef. There’s no way to give you an exact way of measuring this, but if the object already has coral growing on it then it may cause more harm to remove than it would to just leave it. So you will have to use some personal judgment in these cases.
Remove bottles that look like this. Even if it is glass, but has no growth on it. It’s still debris that is better off recycled than littering the reef.
Leave bottles that have coral growing on them, like this one which is part of a restoration project by the awesome people at TRACC on Borneo!
Structure and Buddy Teams
This is just one example of how you can structure the buddy teams . Divers that will use air faster or have less experience would be best placed in group 1 or 2 while the most experienced buddy team might be in group 5. It isn’t necessary to go as deep as the example suggests, because the majority of debris can easily be found between 5-20 meters.
How you structure your volunteer divers during the dive will depend on so many variables that there is no way we could cover everything. What we can offer to share with you, are some of the things we try to consider when making the buddy teams and deciding what part of the reef they will be responsible for covering.
- Training and experience levels
- Air consumption rate (can be tricky to evaluate with unfamiliar divers)
- Dive equipment as mentioned above
- Previous experience with underwater clean ups
- Conditions of the water and bottom composition
- Overall ability and comfort in the water
Depending on your circumstances, there can be many more things to consider, but these are usually the factors we focus on first.
When pairing up divers, if at all possible, put fairly inexperienced divers together with any instructors, divemasters, or experienced divers that are there. The same goes if they haven’t been diving recently, but if this is the case, they would usually be required to take a refresher dive or two before the clean up dive. It may be a good idea as well, to have these divers covering a range of 5 to 12 meters.
Divers who will consume their air at about the same rate will make an ideal dive buddy team, all other factors being equal. Air consumption can be an issue if you are cleaning up a site that extends beyond 18 meters. Normally we only let our most experienced divers or dive professionals take on this part of any clean up, but for reasons that we can’t fully explain, most of the debris we find is between 5 to 20 meters. It might have something to do with currents, or distance from the shore, but rubbish doesn’t seem to be as prevalent at deeper depths.
Here we see two professional divers doing their safety stop at the end of their clean up dive.
We have already mentioned equipment several times but be sure to have adequate numbers of all the appropriate accessories for each diver or buddy team.
Previous experience with this kind of dive is a valuable thing to have at your disposal. Make use of it in the best way you can.
We mentioned bottom composition briefly, so we just want to clarify a few more details here. If part of the dive site has a sandy or muddy bottom, be sure to give everyone clear instructions about being neutrally buoyant and not stirring up the silt. As we all know, coral reefs are fragile places so again, you will want to position your divers in a way where they won’t do any harm to the reef that they came there to protect. We suggest having a back up plan if the conditions become ill suited for the clean up dive that day.
Having Second thoughts?
As any dive leader will tell you, there is nothing worse than a nervous diver who doesn’t think they can make the dive, but says nothing beforehand. Be mindful of people’s comfort level, and observe the divers as you are giving them the information and dive briefings. If you have any doubts or concerns, it’s best to take them aside for a private conversation. It’s possible that they signed up to do the dive not knowing what it involved, and now they feel totally out of their league.
Some gentle reassuring that this doesn’t have to be as difficult as they may be thinking, might be all that is needed to soothe their nerves. However, you should never allow a diver to dive beyond their abilities or comfort level. You can always let them know that you are short on surface support and ask for their help being a spotter from the beach or boat, or conduct the check in and check out procedure. A separate beach clean up is also a great way for anyone who’s not diving to still participate in reducing the overall waste in the ocean, because if it’s on the beach today, it will be on the reef tomorrow.
The Pre-Dive briefing
All good dives start with a comprehensive dive plan and briefing. We have written about the things any good briefing should include but let’s just cover the basics here and highlight some specifics that will apply to your reef clean up dive.
- Maximum depth and time
- Reminder of essential hand signals and checking air
- Entry / exit methods, exit point, and direction of travel
- Lost buddy procedure in case of buddy separation
- Possible conditions of the water on that day
- General safe diving practises
Safety and Best Practises
More specific information related to the clean up dive will need to be explained. Once again, it’s impossible to imagine every possible situation or set of variables. Use this information as a guide, and let your experience and best judgement determine what else would be good to include, or may not be necessary.
Buoyancy. All divers should already be practicing good buoyancy on every dive, so this may seem like a redundant conversation to be having. On a Dive Against Debris it is important to mention buoyancy, because as we clean up rubbish off the ocean floor we may come closer to fragile corals than normal. It’s also a good idea to remind divers that they will need to adjust their buoyancy as their mesh bag gets filled with debris.
Streamlined hoses, gauges, and fins. The last thing we want to do while participating in this environmental action is to have a negative impact on the ecosystem we are there to protect. For this reason, we should take extra precautions that we don’t kick anything with our fins or allow our equipment to come into contact with the reef. Divers should be diving in a slightly tilted downward position when close to the sensitive bottom.
Removing lost and abandoned fishing gear.
Ghost nets can create a serious danger for marine creatures and for divers that attempt to remove them. Here we see Max, co-founder of The Dive Hero, removing an abandoned fishing net that has become attached to the supports of a jetty. He uses caution to not become entangled himself!
The obvious hazards here are poking yourself or your equipment with sharp fishing hooks and possible entanglement. As mentioned earlier this is when you want to cut line rather than pull it against the coral. Fishing line is incredibly strong and it will damage coral long before it breaks from you pulling it. If you are dealing with a long section of fishing line, it’s probably best to wrap it around another object so it doesn’t entangle around you.
Old fishing nets and traps can present a logistical concern as they can be quite bulky and require a coordinated effort to remove. If divers encounter anything of substantial size they should note its depth and location and report it to dive leaders to be removed on a subsequent dive.
Sharp objects such as freshly broken glass, rusty metal, or fishing hooks need to be handled with caution. You should advise divers to determine if it’s a good idea to remove it at all, or note its location and leave it for someone better equipped. As mentioned earlier, take a plastic bottle that’s laying around and cut a large “X“ into the bottom for things like fishing hooks so they don’t get snagged in the mesh bag or your fingers.
Mesh bags should be held in the hand and not attached to anyone. In the event that you need to ditch the bag, it will be easier to do so.
This also makes it easier to pass the bag between buddies so they can share the responsibility or set it down on the sand if they need to use both hands to cut some fishing line.
Situational Awareness. You should cover this in the pre-dive briefing and we will explain this more in the next section below.
Surface support can be an important role for anyone not participating in the dive. Be sure to assign someone to this role and discuss it with the group. Having spotters to watch for potential hazards on the surface can ensure the safety of the divers, and allow them to focus on the clean up efforts. A dedicated person to take roll call of the divers is also highly recommended. You don’t want to find yourself thinking that there are divers still in the water long after the maximum time has been reached, only to find out that they called off their dive early and went back to the dive center to wait for the rest of the group. (We learned this lesson first hand on our second attempt to conduct an event like this. Luckily, the buddy team in question were waiting for everyone 150 meters up the hill, and our concern as to their whereabouts was unnecessary)
Trapped marine life is fairly uncommon on a clean up dive. If one of the teams should encounter marine life that is entangled in a net or line, safely freeing the creature will take precedence to collecting rubbish. Distressed animals can act irrationally, so extra care should be urged when approaching them. The situation may require an organised effort, and possibly someone with a marine biology background. You should also remind your volunteers to shake out bottles, cans, and plastic containers because they commonly become shelters for all kinds of little critters. We only want to remove rubbish, not marine creatures.
Three divers work to free a trapped sea turtle near Guam. For more information about the hazards of Ghost Gear, read this article.
Step 3 Take Action! (the BEST PART)
If you have read the previous section and taken the steps laid out then you have a pretty good idea of what everyone will be doing during the dive. Below we will just cover a few things to be aware of based on our personal trial and error.
Roles of dive leaders and participants
Because you will most likely be working with divers of different levels it’s a good idea to make use of any highly experienced or professional divers you have in the group. If they already are familiar with leading groups of divers then it can be a really good idea to make up some of the buddy teams with an individual dive leader.
This can be essential if you are blessed with a really high level of participation. Have a separate briefing with your dive leaders prior to conducting the general dive briefing and make sure everyone knows who the dive leaders are. When possible, reduce the ratios of less experienced divers to dive leaders compared to a normal fun dive because there will be more going on underwater for the leaders to be aware of.
Document the dive with photos and video.
There is no doubt that this type of event is something that the world needs more of. In the last section we will discuss ways to increase engagement within the diving community at large and local residents as well. But with that in mind, it will greatly increase your ability to do so if you have some underwater photos and/or video of the dive. You need to have dedicated photographers to accomplish this. Even if just one or two of the divers have a camera that won’t limit their ability to collect trash during the dive, they can still get some great shots for you to share online. Side note: One of our favorite shots for a dive like this, is one person putting rubbish into a bag that another person is holding. It is the type of image that sums up what you are doing nicely.
Situational awareness
Perceptual Narrowing is the term used for becoming so focused on one task that other things become easily forgotten. When ‘Task Loading’ like this occurs, it is a genuine concern underwater. This is a very different type of diving that most divers wouldn’t be used to. It is a good idea to remind the divers in the pre-dive briefing not to get so focused on removing debris that they forget their basic safe diving practices such as checking their air (and their buddy’s air), staying close to their buddy team, monitoring their depth and no decompression limits, and maintaining their buoyancy. It’s best to work slowly and systematically even if this means that they feel they aren’t covering a large area.
Common problems
At the risk of repeating ourselves, or causing anyone reading this to abandon the idea of doing a reef clean up, we will just list a few of the common problems to be on the lookout for. Knowing what to watch for should make it easier to eliminate these problems and more.
- Divers becoming overly task loaded
- Divers lagging behind and becoming separated from their buddies
- Dealing with swell and current
- Finding too much trash to collect in a single dive (this is only a problem if you try to get too much in a single dive)
- People who didn’t pay attention to the briefings or didn’t understand what is expected
Keep a positive attitude!
It’s also worth mentioning that there will be so much that will go right with the event, and everyone is likely to have a great experience. If every detail didn’t go exactly according to plan, don’t despair. This is a learning process! As long as things are being done with safety in mind, a little trial and error means that your next underwater clean up will go even better!
Step 4 Evaluate
After the dive, don’t let everyone run off to the next thing just yet. Recording what you found is an important step, and it’s actually a lot of fun for the group believe it or not
Weigh it
Be sure to record the overall weight of the rubbish you have collected. Since this information will be reported as a marine debris survey you should record any waste collected from the beach separately.
There are a few methods you can use for weighing the debris. You can use a hand held scale (like a fish scale), you can use a bathroom scale by subtracting the weight of a person that is holding the debris; or if you are in a remote area without these things, try holding a weight belt in one hand and a mesh bag in the other. Add or subtract dive weights to the belt until it feels roughly the same.
Sort it, then Record the debris
Digging through a pile of wet stinky trash may not sound like much fun. Even just reading this you might be conjuring up images of nasty things that you would rather avoid. But it’s actually both fun and an important part of the process. This is everyone’s chance to see what the rest of the group collected and there are sure to be a few weird items among the mess.
This is where that data collection card or the Dive Against Debris App we mentioned earlier will come in handy. If you are following the Project AWARE system then there will be larger categories which contain subcategories. Do your best to identify all the items and take a count for each grouping. If you’re not sure, the last collumn for each category has an entry called ‘fragments’ for things that cannot be identified or just didn’t quite fit the description of anything else listed.
Step 5 Report your results
How to report your findings
There are a few options on where you can report the marine debris that you have collected. We are most familiar with Project Aware and we appreciate that they have a global map showing debris collected anywhere. We also like that they focus on rubbish collected underwater by scuba divers. When data is collected over a long period and in the same locations, patterns can emerge in the analysis. This data can be presented to local policy makers to influence laws and new programs in an effort to prevent additional debris from entering the ecosystem. This is what turns a clean up dive into a more long term conservation effort by reporting the survey results.
Here are some helpful links when you’re looking to report marine debris
- Dive Against Debris web page or App
- NOAA – Marine Debris Tracker
- Various local authorities in the country where the debris is located (too many to list)
Proper disposal
Now that you have removed all of this trash from the ocean you will want to ensure that it doesn’t find its way back there again. In more developed areas this can be a fairly simple process. Just sort the debris into recyclable and non-recyclable items and dispose of them properly.
In remote areas or those places with a poorly implemented waste management system in place it can be a bit trickier. You may need to transport the rubbish to a facility by land or ferry so you can be sure that it won’t just end up back where you found it. Of course, this can present some logistical difficulties, but plan it out in advance and see what options are available to you. If you are staying on a small island then a possible option could be to ask anyone headed back to the mainland if they wouldn’t mind carrying a bag of debris to the mainland with them. You might get a few strange looks, but if nothing else, this will highlight the situation even more to people who are visiting.
Bonus: Step 6 Broadcast and Encourage others
Share what you have done and thank your volunteers
Everyone loves a ‘Thank You’ and a pat on the back. Send them a digital certificate, and ask them to share a photo or post about the experience on their social media pages. If you have added them to your networks be sure to tag them in your posts and thank them for their efforts there as well. This is important to encourage future participation.
Encourage others to join in
It’s great to take part in an environmental action such as this, but it’s even better when others know about it. The reason we suggest that everyone involved share what they have done on social media is to encourage others to do the same. Good ideas have a way of catching on. Cleaning up remote sections of coral reefs is a good thing in itself, but if others take inspiration from this one event and start doing similar actions, we can have an even larger positive impact.
Call to action, taking the next steps
If you or the others that joined you are interested in doing this again you can take some steps to carry on. One thing to do would be to take the PADI Dive Against Debris Distinctive Specialty. If you are already a PADI instructor, you can become certified to be a Dive Against Debris specialty instructor in which case you can offer a Dive Against Debris certification to people who are participating in your clean up dives.
Adopt a Dive Site. The Project Aware Adopt a Dive Site program is your commitment to returning to the same dive site at least once every month (when conditions allow) to collect data and help track the health of the reef in terms of debris. When you sign up for this program Project Aware will send you a Dive Against Debris tool kit loaded with great stuff. It will include all of the tools we mentioned above (mesh bags, survey guide, debris ID guide, data card) and some really cool extras like an Adopt a Dive Site flag (great for underwater photos), posters about how rubbish ends up in the sea, stickers, and possibly even a few mask straps or additional larger mesh bags. We are pretty sure they are still offering this but you should contact them and confirm this.
You don’t have to be a diver to support the cause.
Ocean conservation doesn’t just take place in the water. Activists from all walks of life can get involved with letter writing campaigns and petitions to change local policy to raise awareness of the problems surrounding marine pollution. As you spread the word about what you are doing be sure to send out a ‘Call To Action’ to engage others across the world. The truth is, we all share the ocean and the problems it faces will affect us all.
Conclusion: A step in the right direction
This is truly a global crisis and it will take a global solution to begin to repair the effects that humans have created in the oceans. For too long now we have looked out at beautiful blue horizons oblivious to the waste that had sunk below the waves..,scuba divers have inevitably become the ambassadors to the sea, and are arguably the best equipped people to recognize the disastrous state of our reefs and #DoSomething about it.
It’s not all bad news! You might be reading this thinking to yourself, there is no way we will ever be able to clean up all of the rubbish when people keep adding to the marine pollution problem faster than we can fix it. Well, you’re not totally wrong, but don’t give up hope just yet! As more and more people become aware of this epidemic, local businesses and governments are starting to catch on. More resorts are turning to green initiatives as tourists choose to spend their money at places that match their values. Law makers too are starting to see the value of ‘going green’ and for both the sake of their natural resources and the survival of their tourism economy, we are starting to see laws being passed in places like Bali in Indonesia banning single use plastics!
Even though this guide was written with a large group of divers conducting an organized clean up on a coral reef, there is nothing to stop you from collecting and reporting marine debris on every dive you and your buddy make. Marine pollution is everywhere, so if you don’t live near tropical waters, you can always do this in your area as well. With new tools like the Dive Against Debris App, you don’t even have to plan to do an ocean clean up, or be some professional ‘Super Diver’ to dive like a Dive Hero. More than anything that is what we hope you will take that away from this guide. Sure it’s great to get a group of environmental conservation minded volunteers together for this purpose, but actually any diver can conduct an underwater clean up. Anytime. Anywhere. Hopefully now you feel ready to give it a try!
We sincerely hope that you have found this guide to starting your own underwater clean up to be helpful and full of good information. If we missed anything or you have something that you would like to add, we would love to read your comments. Have you participated in an underwater clean up? Please share your story and thoughts about it.
Wishing you Happy Bubbles,
The Dive Hero team.
Extra Bonus: Full sized templates
