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Rota community to mark day of beach cleanup
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Posted on Sep 18 2008
[B]Rota[/B]—Local residents here will take part in a major beach cleanup today, joining volunteers across the world in an international effort to beautify and protect Earth’s coastal and marine resources.
More than 230 volunteers on Rota, including students, government agency officials, hotel staff and even local lawmakers will be out on the island’s beaches today removing trash. The cleanup comes as part of an annual cleanup effort organized through the Ocean Conservancy, an environmental group.
In an interview Thursday, William Pendergrass of the Coastal Resources Management Office branch on Rota said the cleanup is import to keeping the island’s beaches in pristine condition.
“Here on Rota, historically people party on the beach and sometimes forget to take their trash home, so it gets strewn all over the place,” he said. “So activities like this cleanup are great for preventing that from getting worse.”
The CNMI’s marine ecosystems, he added, are particularly sensitive to the damage caused by litter and the cleanup today will help to educate students and the public on its impact.
“If you throw a plastic bag out onto the land, it finds its way to the beach,” he said, noting that garbage can often suffocate or otherwise harm aquatic life.
Volunteers, he added, will also be out on beaches elsewhere in the CNMI, including Saipan. The Ocean Conservancy’s International Coastal Cleanup last year included 378,000 volunteers worldwide from 76 countries and 45 states. The effort cleared six million pounds of trash from oceans and waterways.
The cleanup on Rota will begin at 8 m beside the local roundhouse and last until noon.
