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 island of rubbish. We also held a small cleanup around the Sirens Quay area.
At 13:30 volunteers from Kindred arrived, under the leadership of Aurelie Knoglinger, and began to go on board. It transpired that there was room on the boat for more volunteers, and soon the 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, barren 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, along with random pipes, paint pots, shotgun cartridges and random items of clothing.
The luzzu headed out across the bay towards Qawra point, spotting a couple of dolphins on the way, and were soon busy bringing up nets and traps, as well as many sacks filled with car batteries, plastic bottles and other debris. Car tires were also 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, except in the shadow of a statue of St Paul, perched on the highest part of the island, commading amazing 360 degree views. 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, and had a moment of drama when he uncovered an unexploded shotgun shell, heavily corroded, among the bushes! He was soon in touch with the AFM bomb disposal team, who sent personnel to retrieve it.
Video of the seabed part of the cleanup 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 with one more stop still to make. A few hundred meters from shore there were a number of objects previously identified for collection, including more car tires, a procelain toilet stool and one giant tractor tire, plus more sacks of 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. Once we docked 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 soon 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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