On Wednesday 31st July, 20 volunteers took part in a small-scale targeted clean-up organised by iGEN on and around St Paul’s Island, including four divers from Raniero’s Adventures and No To Plastic Malta.

The main focus of the day was to remove abandoned fishing nets and fish traps, plus other debris from the seas around the island, as well as clear the remote and barren island of rubbish. We also held a small cleanup around the Sirens Quay area.

At 13:00 our chartered traditional Maltese luzzu was moored at the small slipway on Triq San Geraldu, and divers Reniero Borg, Edward and Adrian Sultana and Graziella Buttigieg began preparing the vessel for the day’s activities. Glen from iGEN and Rob Jones from NoID made base camp by the pumping station opposite the slipway, and scouted the area for the local cleanup, to be managed by Rob.

Shortly after they were joined by Céline, Pauline and Jade, three French interns from The Merill Company, who had contacted us and asked if they could join in the clean-up, and soon they were busy removing litter from the surrounding vegetation and placing it in the plastic sacks provided by CleanMalta. We also had a skip arriving soon, sponsored by the St Pauls Bay local council, who also sponsored the necessary permits.

At 13:30 volunteers from Kindred arrived, under the leadership of Aurelie Knoglinger, and began to climb aboard. It turned out that there was room on the boat for more volunteers, and soon our three French interns were sat in the prow, and at 14:00 the boat left its moorings and headed out into the bay. After a 15 minute journey we arrived at St Paul’s Island and began to disembark, leaving a couple of volunteers on board to help the divers with the heavy debris they were going to be bringing up from the seabed.The onshore volunteers soon split into small groups and began heading out across the uninhabited, rocky island, searching for rubbish under the scorching sun, with very little breeze and temperatures in the 30’s. Plastic and glass bottles were the main finds, and soon many string sacks were being filled with them, along with random pipes, paint pots, shotgun cartridges and random items of clothing.

The luzzu and crew headed out across the bay towards Qawra point, spotting a couple of dolphins on the way, and they were soon busy bringing up nets and traps, as well as filling many sacks with car batteries, plastic bottles and other debris. Car tires were another common find, as well as a length of heavy duty plastic pipe, identified as once being part of a fish farm, but abandoned long ago.

The onshore cleanup volunteers were soon taking advantage of the crystal clear waters to cool off, as there was no shade to be found anywhere on the island, except in the shadow of a statue of St Paul, perched on the highest part of the rock, commanding amazing 360 degree views to the horizon. After cooling off we were soon back at work, scouring the remaining parts of the island for more litter.

Back at Sirens Quay, Rob Jones was busy filling many large black plastic sacks with random rubbish from around the pumping station and adjacent trees, and had a moment of drama when he uncovered an unexploded shotgun shell, heavily corroded, among the bushes! He was quickly in touch with the AFM’s bomb disposal team, who sent personnel to retrieve it.

Video from the dive courtesy Raniero Borg

At 16:15 the boat was back to collect the tired volunteers and their eight rubbish-filled sacks, and we were soon heading back across the bay, although we had one more stop still to make; a few hundred meters from shore there were a number of objects previously identified and placed for collection, including more car tires, a porcelain toilet stool(!) and one giant tractor tire, plus more sacks filled with plastic rubbish collected from the seabed.

Airbags were used to raise the larger objects, and we were soon towing the tractor tire behind us to the quayside. After docking, we began transporting all the rubbish to the skip, and soon it was more than half filled, once the black sacks were added. We then quickly moved to the Nuni Bar kiosk where we had arranged for our post-cleanup mingle to take place, and soon people were relaxing in the pool, and sipping on cold drinks and eating nibbles at the poolside. After taking care of their equipment and the boat, our four divers joined us for refreshments, and the skip was collected.

Everyone agreed it was another great day spent doing good deeds for the environment, and the proof of the scale of our achievement came from skip hire company Veladrians Cleaning Services, who confirmed that 960 kilos of rubbish had been collected!

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