Is it so hard to keep our beaches clean?

What will really amaze the visitors, when they stroll down Phuket’s beautiful Kamala Beach, is the piles of plastic and general garbage (including broken bottles), not only along most of the beach, but also spewing onto the promenades. Groups of schoolchildren, volunteers from local businesses and some property owners can be seen a few times a month cleaning small sections of the beach, but currents, tides and waves soon redistribute the remaining garbage to those cleaned parts, and more garbage arrives daily from elsewhere.

How does such a situation exist at a beach resort that derives its very livelihood from tourism?

Attempts to alert local officials to the seriousness of the situation have failed. The feedback indicates that the beach condition is none of their concern, with hints that the beach lies in the jurisdiction of the Fisheries Department.

I previously had a home on the Costa Brava in Spain. That was also in a beach resort town. Just after sunrise every morning, summer and winter, dozens of cleaners using mechanised equipment actually sifted the sand for the entire four-kilometre beach. The day’s beach-goers wouldn’t even step on a bottle top. We don’t need mechanisation at Kamala, only a decision made at some level of government as to who should really be in charge of the beach conditions. 

Concerned

Phuket