Dive Academy, a scuba diving school in Lahinch, Co Clare (www.diveacademy.info) has been named as winners of the Business of the Year section in this year’s Clean Coasts’ Ocean Hero Awards.
Dive Academy has organised a number of beach clean events over the years; this year Dive Academy organised two successful beach clean events: 101 dive site on 2nd June 2018 as part of Coca-Cola Clean Coasts Week events and White Strand beach on 15th September 2018 as part of the Big Beach Clean. The business collected around 200kg of debris during these events.
The group filled over 20 sacks (140kg) of refuse during the Big Beach Clean, along with several large objects (a metal fence-post, a tangled mass of rope, a car battery, plastic panels and sheets). The group took these objects to the local council facility for processing. The volunteers were invited back to the Dive Academy for tea and coffee, in reusable mugs, and biscuits. The Dive Academy then showed short videos from Clean Coasts and Project Aware on the problems of plastic and how to address these problems. The Dive Academy also gave free dives to two young volunteers in their pool.
The business holds “Dive Against Debris” dives (an initiative from Project Aware) where they collect any underwater debris from some of their favourite dive sites in the Atlantic. The business now includes information on underwater debris collection during their dive briefings and they encourage divers to collect underwater debris and return it to their dive centre for disposal.
Dive Academy owner and manager, Darek Guziuk, said “We never expected anything like this (the award), we are just doing what we love, diving, and decided to organise some activities to help combat ocean debris. Then when we were nominated, we were delighted, but to actually win it was brilliant – I am so happy with that”
Dive Academy will continue to organise beach clean events, in conjunction with local groups, and promote the need to keep our oceans debris free throughout the 2019 diving season.
For more information on Dive Academy and our work for a cleaner ocean, please see our Blog (https://www.diveacademy.info/en/blog/viewpost/56/beach-clean-event) or contact Dive Academy (contact@diveacademy.info) for more information.