Collecting 30 Tons of Debris from Remote Island Beaches in Cleanup Rally with Ehime Governor, 120 Residents
On July 22, I took a 7:15 a.m. flight to Matsuyama, Ehime Prefecture, to participate in a rally to collect marine waste from beaches on small remote islands in the Uwa Sea in Uwajima City in the western Japanese prefecture.
Approximately 120 people took part, including Ehime Governor Tokihiro Nakamura, Uwajima Mayor Fumiaki Okahara, officials of the prefectural and municipal governments, and members of local fishery cooperatives as well as local junior high school students and other volunteers committed to tackling marine debris.
To access the beach on Tojima Island, which has no docking facilities, we chartered a 250-ton landing craft, bringing plastic compactors and other heavy equipment. Some of the locals took smaller boats to Hiburijima and other smaller islands in the sea.
Speaking at the start of the rally, I said: “Joined by those of you representing the prefectural and municipal governments, local communities and fishery cooperatives, we have gathered here today to make the Uwa Sea clean again. This is a challenging place for a cleanup. But by mobilizing the landing dock and other heavy equipment, let’s do a thorough job.”
Altogether, the participants had collected a total of roughly 30 tons of waste after a 60-minute cleanup of those beaches.
The event was part of the “Setouchi Oceans X” project launched in December 2020 by The Nippon Foundation together with Ehime and three other prefectures that encircle the Seto Inland Sea aimed at achieving the world’s most beautiful inland sea. In April this year, we extended the project, originally scheduled to last until March 2025, by three years to March 2028.
Research by the Ehime prefectural government has identified about 560 spots in and around the Uwa Sea, which are hard for local residents to access and where there have barely been cleanup campaigns, resulting in large amounts of plastic and other marine litter collecting on shore.
We have decided to prioritize 107 spots with for cleanup rallies over the coming three years.
Ehime Governor Nakamura told the participants: “The Setouchi Oceans X project was launched to protect the Seto Inland Sea, which is our treasure. However, our research found that a huge amount of marine trash, or the equivalent of 32,000 light-truck loads, washed up on the beaches in the Uwa Sea. Given this reality, we aim to remove much of the debris in three years while also focusing on not dumping garbage. Let’s work together to tackle marine waste.”
The Nippon Foundation has earmarked about 2.97 billion yen (about $20.1 million) to cover the cost of the Setouchi Oceans X project, including 1.52 billion yen (about $ 10.3 million) for the extended period.
As for the cost of the day’s cleanup rally, including the cost of chartering the landing craft and heavy equipment, we set aside about 30 million yen (about $200,000) from donations by the motorboat racing associations in Kojima (Okayama Prefecture), Miyajima (Hiroshima Prefecture) and Marugame (Kagawa Prefecture), the three other prefectures that encircle the Seto Inland Sea.
Inland seas such as the Seto Inland Sea typically have a relatively small inflow of marine litter from outside oceans. But we have found tons of garbage washed up along the coastlines and on remote islands like Tojima Island in the four prefectures.
I called on the prefectural and municipal governments and their citizens in Ehime Prefecture to join forces over the coming three years to clean up the beaches.
I sincerely hope that their activities will become a model for cleanup campaigns on remote islands and other areas that are difficult to access in other parts of the country.
