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Beach Cleaning Project
Anti-litter educational campaign to maintain clean the Puerto Viejo, Cocles, Chiquita and Carate beaches in the South Caribbean and South Pacific of Costa Rica.
The proposed project is a long-term anti-litter educational campaign, which addresses the litter problems on the Puerto Viejo, Cocles and Chiquita beaches in the South Caribbean of Costa Rica, and the Carate beach in the South Pacific by targeting both residents and visitors of these areas.
The main objective of the first phase of this campaign is to reduce the amount of litter on these beaches by raising beach goers’ awareness regarding the impact of litter on our beaches and surrounding aquatic habitats. It is hoped, by continuously exposing them to positive anti-litter messages for a long period of time, that beach goers will become more conscious of the impact of their actions and consequently change their behavior regarding littering. Reducing litter on our coastal zones will prevent marine pollution and continuous damage to this important ecosystem.
The secondary objective is to finance beach cleaning initiatives involving schools, business and both local residents as well as tourists. By having them help in a beach cleaning initiative, walking the length of the beach and picking up all the litter, it will create more awareness regarding the importance of removing your own litter when you visit the beach. This campaign goes hand in hand with the trails and signs campaign, to build the signs for the litter reduction initiative and it is also being enforced in Carate beach as this location is one of the most important nesting sites for sea turtles in the South Pacific of Costa Rica.
This project is to be executed once a month but on a different beach, in this way, we can involve different areas of the community to raise awareness regarding the beach closest to them. The idea is to build a sense of pride and ownership, so eventually, the residents, businesses and visitors of each area, feel responsible for their own piece of paradise!
For these project, we hope to involve the community not only as participants, but to donate some of the materials, however, we still need to secure funding to make sure we have all that is needed for this campaign. We have set a goal of $4,000 to support the beach cleaning initiatives each month. This money will cover the materials such as garbage bags, gloves, transportation of the litter to the dump or to the recycling plant and even water and a snack for all the participants!