September 19 marks the International Coastal Clean-up Day and the Ling Jiou Mountain Buddhist Society (LJM) has been stepping up its ‘Loving the Earth’ campaign by adding a further dimension of dedicating an hour every month to cleaning up the beach for the last three years running. Along the stretch of the beach, however, litters like plastic waste, cigarette butts, and broken glasses, still lie washed up the shore or half buried in the sand. The LJM beach-cleaning task force and voluntary netizens, therefore, initiated a ‘deep cleansing’ movement for the first time. Armed with sieves and shovels, the group took their act to the Wa Tzu Beach next to the Dong Xing Temple in Fu Lung, New Taipei City, in the hope that future visitors can enjoy the beach barefoot.

Our motto goes that everyone has a role to play for environmental protection and seemingly small actions tally up to make it a better world. A total of 150 kilograms of beach waste was collected by the said group of 25 people by the division of work and collaboration of labour. Shovels and sieves came in handy to do the job, and litters like driftwood, pebbles, bottle caps, plastic straws and shreds all surfaced from under the beach sand. The effort was to keep the beach clean as clean can go.

GUO Pei-Wen, a netizen from Lin Kou, came well-prepared with her own working tools from the kitchen for the ‘deep cleansing’. LUO Sai from Wu Gu remarked happily that the cleansing process made him realize that there is still so much to do for the Earth. Tien-Na was there with husband and their 1-and-a-half yo baby boy and they had a wonderful field-day on the beach for blending goodwill act and quality time with the family. Fellow LJM follower Ya Fang and her family of three have been a regular of the LJM beach-cleaning task force, and they got other friends to join the initial ‘deep cleansing’. The experience was rather gratifying and they all hope to return by bringing more friends and relatives to join.

The LJM beach-cleaning initiative is a long-term dedication with no efforts spared. Two stretches of beach became officially designated as under LJM's care and they are respectively the pedestrian walkway where the Shih Ding Creek flows into the sea in Gong Liao District (since August 2017) and the Wa Tzu Beach next to the Dong Xing Temple in Fu Lung (since September 2018). On the 2nd Saturday between 3 to 4 o'clock P.M. every month, the LJM beach-cleaning task force returns to deliver its voluntary services for each designated beach area on an alternating monthly schedule. The two initiatives have just been renewed for a further 3-year extension each.

Over the span of three years the LJM beach-cleaning initiative grew from a launch experience of six lone participants for an hour-long voluntary effort to a sizable monthly event with attendance in excess of a hundred people devoting three to four hours to the task. Tie-up efforts have been extended to corporations like DHL and the Fullon Hotel chain for co-branding exercises respectively titled ‘Voluntary Day’ and ‘Loving the Earth by Cleaning up the Beach ; Come & Enjoy Sculpture in Sand’. Both tie-in efforts turned out to be successful and worthy of probable repeats.

The LJM beach-cleaning initiatives manifest anew as an integral part of the ‘Loving the Earth’ ideal promoted by the Buddhist Society’s Founding Abbot, Dharma Master Hsin Tao. The two stretches of the beach under LJM’s care are one rocky and one sandy, and the ‘deep-cleansing’ for the sandy beach launched on September 19 2020 took the LJM initiative one step further to embody our determination to do our share in safeguarding the Earth while keeping the Fu Lung beach beautiful and enjoyable.

Beach-cleaning or coastal clean-up awakens people’s awareness of the environment that ushers in a brand new opportunity for a realigned lifestyle, with everyone committed to safeguarding the oceans. The International Coastal Clean-up Day originated from a private initiative when the Australian yachtsman Ian Kiernan was in a BOC Challenge solo circumnavigation of the world and appalled by the rubbish choking the world’s oceans. He decided to do something concrete and with the support of a committee of friends, he organized a community event - Clean-up Sydney Harbour on Saturday, January 8, 1989. A rough estimate of 40,000 volunteers turned out to help and collected 5,000 tonnes of rubbish, sending shock waves through the whole of Australia. The United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) adopted the Australian initiative in 1993 and designated every third Saturday of September the ‘World Cleanup Day’, also known as the ‘International Coastal Cleanup Day’. Today more than 150 countries have pledged to honor the global commitment.