Fun beach cleanups with Island Keepers CNMI

Island Keepers CNMI volunteers make cleanups fun, with its members picking up trash in beaches, public parks and roads, jungles, and even trekking and dive sites. (Iva Maurin)

A group of students from the Garapan Elementary School gathered last Saturday morning at Micro Beach to help pick up trash along the beach. With them were members of Island Keepers CNMI—a public group of volunteers from all over the island, united in a mission to keep the CNMI clean and pristine.

Island Keepers organizer Noriko Akari Baidya told Saipan Tribune that they not only pick up trash in beaches but also help clean up public roads and park and other sites like jungles. When they do trekking activities, they also pick up trash.

Aside from Micro Beach, the group has been helping clean up Paupau Beach, Laulau Beach, Garapan Fishing Base, as well as dive sites. Most of the trash they collect are beer cans and cigarette butts.

“Everybody understands that we need to keep the environment [clean], [and yet] everybody can easily see trash that is in front of you. Our important point is ‘clean up with fun,’” Baidya said.

In last Saturday’s cleanup, Island Keepers collaborated with Jonathan Ball, a fifth-grade teacher at the Garapan Elementary School. Eight of his students participated in the activity.

“Our school, we have Saturday programs and our program is based on mental health and socio-emotional learning, and we are trying to get the kids active and socializing more. Today, we teamed up with Island Keepers and we’re doing a beach cleanup. It’s a competition,” he said.

Garapan Elementary School fifth grade teacher Jonathan Ball teamed up with Island Keepers CNMI for a beach cleanup activity with his students last Saturday at Micro Beach in Garapan. (Iva Maurin)

The group divided into two teams and for 30 minutes, picked up trash, which they weighed shortly after. A total of 20 kilos of trash were collected by both teams.

Ball also told Saipan Tribune that aside from the cleanup, they also are doing a unit in Science about ecosystems where they talk about environmental protection initiatives and connect it to conservation.

“How can we conserve the ecosystems that are here?” he added. “So we talk about it by cleaning up a lot of the plastics. We’re making it more beautiful but also protecting the marine life, the sea turtles—keeping it beautiful but also helping the animals that live here.”

And to help protect the environment, the Garapan Elementary School teacher also appealed to everyone in the community that when going somewhere, “take your trash with you when you leave” to help keep the beaches clean and beautiful.

Baidya echoes the same, asking everyone in the community to just pick up.

“Just pick up trash in front of you because the trash is available to travel by wind, and brought to the ocean, to the other islands, so just pick up trash you find when you go to the beach or [go] diving and swimming.”

To know more about their beach cleanups and to help volunteer, look for Island Keepers CNMI on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/groups/874134049895799).