“Coastwatch” in action along beaches in Calvia

FORGET “Baywatch”, as “Coastwatch” is the craze sweeping through the beaches in Calvia as part of an environmental workshop aimed at children and young adults, the future of the island. Around one hundred children and young adults, aged between 12 and 18 years old, joined forces and spent all yesterday removing litter from the beaches in the area. This is the ninth year that this programme has been running in Calvia and it seems a success from all parts.
The children wearing their “Coastwatch” T.shirts grabbed a rubbish bag and started filling it with the rubbish which hampers the beaches and coastline in Calvia. Along the way, all the children also completed a table which asked for a lot of detailed information on the beach they were working on, such as the access to the beach, state of the beach, what vegetation and fauna there is on the beach, the number of rubbish bags filled and the main type of rubbish collected. It was found during the day that the majority of beach rubbish is a variety of bottles, plastic plates, cigarette ends and condoms. The table they all completed helps compare the state of the beaches with previous years. A new feature for this year was a photograph competition. Cinema tickets and trips to the Cabrera National Park were awarded for the best photographs.
In addition, these photographs will now been shown in various council buildings.
In groups, the participants helped remove tonnes of rubbish from the beaches in Palmanova, Magalluf, Santa Ponsa and Caló d'en Pallicer.
After the collection, they all met at Santa Ponsa beach to discuss their experiences and also to play a few games before heading home.