AirAsia does a reef and beach clean-up

AirAsia, together with Project AWARE and Viking Scuba Tenggol, recently conducted a reef and beach clean-up in Terengganu, Malaysia in conjunction with International Coastal Cleanup Day on 21 September. 

Forty AirAsia Allstars (staff) joined hands to reduce marine debris and create greater awareness of the need to protect our oceans, and the harm of single-use plastics, as part of AirAsia’s #AllstarsDoGood regional initiative.

The Allstars, who are all certified scuba divers from Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines, cleared 40kg worth of ghost nets from a dive site in Tenggol Island and collected 151kg of rubbish from the Pantai Sura beachfront in Kuala Dungun.

#AllstarsDoGood is a staff initiative established by AirAsia’s People and Culture department to encourage staff to volunteer for a good cause. To date, 4,160 volunteer hours have been recorded from various #AllstarsDoGood initiatives across Asean. 

AirAsia’s Group Head of Culture Attila Emam said, “This is our third reef and beach clean-up project under the #AllstarsDoGood initiative after Pattaya and Batangas, and the first in Malaysia. As a travel company that brings so many people to beautiful beach and island destinations across the region, we want to make sure we do our part in educating people on the importance of taking care of these destinations.”

“We are happy to report that the three dive sites we visited at Tenggol Island had minimal marine debris. However, 95% of what we collected on Pantai Sura were single-use plastics, mainly of food packaging.

“The beachfront is a popular hangout place and most of the rubbish was found in between rocks. Imagine 151kg of rubbish collected in an hour, and the problem can be solved by just putting the trash in the right place.

“We’ve submitted the beach clean-up data to the Ocean Conservancy platform, while the reef clean-up data has been reported on Project AWARE’s website,” he added. 

AirAsia has 25,000 Allstars and actively conducts #AllstarsDoGood staff volunteer programmes across the region.