GEOTHERMAL leader Energy Development Corporation’s (EDC) Binhi Youth Champions recently held their coastal cleanup and waste audit activity at Barangay Calindagan in Dumaguete City, Negros Oriental.

Now on its second year, the activity entitled Swim and Save was spearheaded by Fearn Ann Acibo and other college student leaders from Asian College, Silliman University, Foundation University who became EDC’s youth ambassadors after attending one of its Binhi Youth Camps between 2014 to 2018.

They were able to remove over 452 kilogram of debris, including clothes, shoes, plastic bottles, pieces of styrofoam, and cigarette butts from the area with the help of other volunteers from Scuba Ventures, representatives from Provincial Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (PDRRMC) and Bureau of Fire Protection (BFP), who went into the deep to look for trash that might harm marine life.

The coastal clean-up aims to inculcate the importance of preserving a clean environment among the youth in Negros Island.

“With the ever-increasing ocean pollution, it feels like it is an uphill struggle to start to shift the tide. So my friends and I came up with the idea of Swim and Save, a coastal clean-up and waste audit,” said Acibo. “Through this initiative, we are able to collect not just trash but data as well

The Binhi Youth Champions provided all volunteers with gloves, rice sacks, snacks and water and certificates in recognition of their efforts in helping save the seas. (PR)