Still cleaning our beaches, 30 tonnes of trash later

Malaysia is home to some of the world’s most beautiful coastlines. But each year, an estimated 73,098 metric tonnes of plastic waste from the country makes its way into the sea. That makes Malaysia the world’s third-largest contributor of ocean plastic by total mass.

But not everyone is willing to turn a blind eye.

“MY Clean Beach” is a Malaysian environmental advocacy movement co-founded in 2019 by Geeva Samynathan who grew up near the golden sands of Teluk Cempedak in Kuantan.

“We started ‘MY Clean Beach’ over eight years ago, and it’s truly a passion initiative. We didn’t really see it growing at this scale when we started,” she told FMT Lifestyle.

“One day we were walking at a beach in Perak, and it really hurt us almost instantly to see the kind of trash on the ground. That’s how it all started.”

What began with a couple of friends organising beach clean-ups grew into an internationally recognised initiative, removing nearly 30,000kg of waste over the years.

Today, the team relies on a growing network of community volunteers from all walks of life, who give up their Saturdays to get their hands dirty.

“We are a group of people who just truly love nature. Everyone on the team has the same agenda – to make a little difference,” said Geeva, a certified sustainability (ESG) practitioner.

Today, the organisation mainly works with corporate clients on two- to three-hour CSR clean-ups at locations across Malaysia. One of their biggest clean-up efforts saw the team collect 1,200kg of trash in a single session.

“We focus on corporate events because we realise working adults have a voice, and they can share what they learn with their families and communities,” Geeva said.

FMT Lifestyle joined the MY Clean Beach team for a morning beach clean-up in Sepang in mid-September.

Once the waste is brought back to the base, it is sorted into different categories, including glass, tin and metal, general waste, plastic, and more.

“We collect data, which is published openly. We even go to the extent of counting how many cigarette butts and straws were collected.”

Geeva said single-use plastics such as straws, bottles and food packaging make up most of their hauls, followed by cigarette butts, while diapers also occasionally turn up.

Fishing nets and broken glass are also often collected, posing safety risks to both people and wildlife.

The team follows a strict zero-waste framework, meaning 100% of the collected waste is diverted from landfills and repurposed.

Their zero-waste philosophy doesn’t stop at the trash they collect; it starts with what they bring to the beach.

The team avoids standard black plastic rubbish bags, and instead provides certified compostable bags for its clean-ups. They also avoid using single-use latex and nitrile gloves for both environmental and practical reasons, as these can tear easily during clean-ups. Instead, volunteers are provided with heavy-duty, washable fabric and rubber-coated work gloves.

The group also organises tree-planting initiatives and educational programmes aimed at promoting better waste management.

While Geeva has no plans to slow down, she hopes more Malaysians will step up and lend a hand. She said that although awareness has grown and more volunteers have come forward in recent years, beach clean-ups alone will not solve the problem.

“We clean the beach today and the ocean still washes up more trash the next day. Malaysians love to go for picnics, but they can tell you, ‘I forgot to bring a plastic bag to wrap up the trash’. In terms of behaviour shift, I think we’re still very far away.”

Eight years and tonnes of trash later, there’s still plenty of work to do. Hopefully, one day, there’ll be less rubbish waiting for them.

Learn more about ‘MY Clean Beach’ here.

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