Cox's Bazar beach gets a cleanup on World Cleanup Day
Along with protecting the environment, the campaign aimed to raise awareness among residents and tourists.
A "Beach Cleanup Campaign" was held today (20 September) on Cox's Bazar sea beach to make the tourist city plastic-waste-free and environmentally friendly.
Along with protecting the environment, the campaign aimed to raise awareness among residents and tourists.
To mark World Cleanup Day, the Department of Public Health Engineering (DPHE) and Brac jointly organised the programme, which covered the stretch of beach from Sugandha to Kolatoli between 3:00pm and 5:30pm.
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Staff from the United Nations, various domestic and international development organisations, as well as DPHE and Brac officials, joined the event.
More than 300 participants—including local school and college students, young men and women, development workers, and tourists—took part spontaneously. Wearing gloves and carrying waste-collection bags, they cleared a wide range of plastic litter and other garbage.
Activities included beach cleaning, awareness discussions and cultural performances. The event drew an enthusiastic response from both students and visiting tourists.
Distinguished guests included Golam Muktadir, project director of the DPHE's Emergency Assistance Project; Abul Monzur, assistant engineer at the DPHE Cox's Bazar office; Deepak K C, project development specialist at UNDP's Cox's Bazar sub-office; Sajeda Begum, WASH officer of Unicef; and Subrata Kumar Chakraborty, adviser of Brac's Humanitarian Crisis Management Programme (HCMP), among others.
"As part of our citizen awareness activities, we are conducting this campaign," Golam Muktadir said. "We hope people will themselves take similar initiatives like this beach-cleaning drive on their own," he added.
Other speakers added, "This initiative is not only about cleaning the beach but also about creating awareness to protect the environment. We want to engage more young people in this effort because youth can play a key role in bringing about sustainable change."
Cox's Bazar beach draws huge numbers of tourists every day. The growing use of plastic items such as water bottles by both visitors and locals is causing a rapid rise in plastic waste.
