The Southern Taiwan Hiking Group Removed 128 kg's of Trash on Taiwan National Clean-Up Day

Correction from Above

For the Southern Taiwan Hiking Group portion of the cleanup, Kirk Beiser did all of the organization work. However, this event is a nationwide event organized by a Travel Company called Taiwan Adventure Outings. You can get more numbers of where people cleaned the most trash here. The amount taken from Taichung is absolutely mind-blowing.

A Chat & Clean on the Beach

Here is a little story about how the day went for the Southern Taiwan Hiking Group.

Mikayla, Vivi, Ann, & I got out of my car at 10:37 on Saturday morning. The girls mentioned ,"Hao Re," or "So hot," within seconds of me shutting off my car. I set my  finished coffee on top of the car while everyone got their waters stuffed into their bags. I also put my sunscreen on, even though it was watery and useless after several months of resting in the back of my trunk.

As I shut the door to my car, I saw the event organizer, Kirk, come walking up the hill. I was quite happy to see Kirk as we have hiked plenty of mountains, traced many rivers, and drank many whiskeys together, but haven't seen much of him this year. He's the kind of guy you always want on your team.

The girls kind of naturally got seperated from us. Kirk and I devised a plan  for one to carry a bag for garbage and one to carry a bag for recyclables.

The blue water looked the same color as the sky as we chatted about the school year that has already passed. He seems content teaching a mix of privates, and I am content teaching farm kids in Douliou. I talked how my stress is at an all time low, and I also feel like my students are actually learning.

Somewhere in the middle of our conversation, I saw two of the other guys that joined us on the clean up. They both appeared to be students studying abroad. We had a a chance to talk with Dimitri a little longer than the other guy. Of course, he had never heard of the city I live in.

The waves kept crashing at the same pace Kirk and I were working,  calm and peaceful. I told Kirk about my plans for the summer to go to Korea, and also Thailand to take a Permaculture course. I hope to use the skills I gain to help make teaching more interesting for me next year. I feel like the more excuses I can come up with to take the students outside, the less likely I will be  burned out by November of next school year.

The wind occasionally blew  piles of leaves from the sand towards the sky as we kept working. Before I could blink an eye, Kirk told me that we would just finish one more bag's worth of garbage, and then start to head back.

We reminisced about the days when the Southern Taiwan Hiking Group was a much stronger and more cohesive unit. We have just never been able to attract more trip leaders. I'm happy to take the blame for this. However, I don't know the solution at this point. We are also losing another trip leader at the end of June this year.

So, we headed back towards the car as we rounded up the rest of the group.  The wind blew up another pile of leaves towards the sky as I spotted a man I call 'David Sugar-Free Bates.' He's an interesting fellow who is passionate about building community. Still, one of the funniest things he ever said to me was ,"Yeah man. I quit fruit."

But, he recently started a company selling Bamboo Sunglasses and Bamboo Toothbrushes. You can contact Mr. David Sugar-Free Bates on FB if you're looking for a way to help support the environment.

David & I made some casual chit chat about how things are going recently. I asked about his company.

I was hoping he would talk about our trip to Taitung over Chinese New Year for my own selfish reasons. We camped the night before in Fenggang. I drag a lot of people  there , just because I have some personal memories of the place that I can't seem to let go of yet. But, the only thing funnier that he ever told me than , "I quit fruit," was that morning after camping g on the beach when he said, "Yeah , sleeping in the ditch wasn't so fun." So, I wanted to hear him talk about that experience again to give me a laugh.

I'm afraid I'm ruining the delivery of Sugar Free Bates.

But, everyone gathered all of the trash we gathered and lined it up for a picture. Kirk suggested a good spot for the picture, and how to show how much trash is actually on that beach. We were only there for maybe three hours total and we collected 128 kg's of trash.

You can find a quick video here from people all over the island participating I'm the National Clean-Up Day here.

After we finished weighing the trash, Dimitri said music to my ears,

"Hey. I saw another waterfall nearby on Google Maps." 
"You guys wanna go?"

Even if I didn't want to go, I would surely support someone organizing a trip.so, we all headed off for a swim under the unofficial direction of a different trip leader for the Southern Taiwan Hiking Group.
Here is the waterfall we went to.

Future Clean-Up Days

If anyone in the Southern Taiwan Hiking Group is feeling motivated to organize a new event, it is much easier than you would think. You could do it in four steps.

1.)Make an event page for a location you want to see improved

2.) Bring garbage bags and gloves

3.) Weight the trash
4.) Have a Taiwanese friend call the local authorities to to have the bags taken away