Last Saturday, Unalaska’s chapter of Alaska Youth for Environmental Action and the UCSD Student Government organized a trash clean-up around the high school and Front Beach. There was a pretty good turn out and about fifteen students representing all different grades in high school showed up to help. The weather was good, and everyone agreed it was a nice day to clean up outside.
The clean-up started at the school where the group broke off to pick up trash around the school. There was litter, but there was also quite a bit of debris from the recent storms. The group picked up roofing that was scattered around the school and playground.
After working around the school, the group moved to Front Beach where they found most of the garbage. They picked up the usual discarded water bottles, rope, and food wrappers, but there was some unusual stuff that they found. For example, someone found an 8 gigabyte flash drive.
The group was full of some very motivated students. Last year, the student government wrote a resolution to encourage other schools and communities to institute a clean-up week, like the one Unalaska has. The student government really wanted to follow up on this idea so they decided to help organize and participate in this local clean-up. One reason was that the official clean up week was in May, but trash accumulates during the rest of the year which makes additional clean-ups necessary.
Alaska Youth for Environmental Action (AYEA) is a state-wide group that has been around since 1998. However, the chapter in Unalaska was started this year and this clean-up was the first local project that they have been involved with. While the state wide group focuses on bigger issues, the Unalaska chapter would like to help with local environmental projects. The Unalaska chapter hopes to keep organizing and helping with projects like this clean-up.
If you want to get involved with another project like this one, contact Ms. Rudio with the student government, or Mr. Holloway with AYEA. They would love your input or help!