The beach cleanup was a community effort by local residents in Moo 4, Mai Khao, the Soi Dog Foundation (SDF) explained to The Phuket News today (June 28).
“And there were a lot of small oil rocks, while you may know, oil rocks have been found on Phuket beaches for the past two weeks. As you’ll see in the photo, the tangle of ropes was drenched in thick, sticky oil and required 17 people to pull it up to the beach!” the SDF staffer said.
“We couldn’t reach two more in the sea; we spent two hours there and collected up to ten trash bags. Let’s cross our fingers that not just the beach will be ready for tourists on Thursday,” the staffer added.
As noted above, oil drifting in the water off Phuket’s west coast has washed ashore Phuket beaches since June 13, and since then have been found as far north as Mai Khao Beach and as far south as Nai Harn Beach, some 37km away (in a straight line) at the southern end of the island.
Beach cleanups have continued since then, with a beach cleanup at Nai Yang Beach last weekend collecting more than 240kg of tar balls and oil-smothered marine debris cleared from the beach inside Sirinath National Park.