Clean-up at L-Aħrax (Environment Fair Part 1)

Joseph Caruana (Greenhouse)

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Environment Fair started off pretty early for Greenhouse: our members and friends, together with S-Cubed, started the week with an 'against all odds' clean-up at L-Aħrax tal-Mellieħa. This activity sought to assist Birdlife Malta address the challenges that the rodent population poses on the Yelkouan Shearwater, a bird species which Malta is estimated to host 10% of its breeding population!! So what's up with the clean-up idea?

The team posing with the rubbish collected

It was the second of a series of such activities that we are organising in conjunction with the Science Student Society. Through these clean-ups we seek to (A) Promote sites of Ecological Importance [Previous site: Tal-Ballut] and (B) acting hands-on for a just cause.

Plenty of people attended the clean-up, despite the very bad weather and luckily for all of us the weather in Mellieha remained calm until we disbanded later in the day. Furthermore, we were given a presentation by Birdlife volunteer Nicholas Barbara on the Life+ project which they conducted on the site to protect the area and the bird species which make use of this area.

The activity progressed with the clean-up activity which accumulated mainly packaging waste.... some construction waste... and also metal junk. For both myself and my friends it's always impressive when taking part in these activities to see with one's own eyes how irresponsible we may tend to act just because we are either lazy or completely ignorant of what harm we are causing to these sites.

Nick Barbara (Birdlife) telling us about the Life+ project carried out at L-Aħrax

The activity finalised we all rallied to a bar in Mellieha frequented by the locals to share some drinks and get to know each other a bit better than the clean up could have permitted. A pint of beer anyone?