Hong Kong adventurers to launch paramilitary ‘assault on trash’ washed up on hard-to-clean beaches

Outdoor enthusiasts will use abseiling, kayaking and coasteering to clean up six hard-to-access coastal rubbish spots around Shek O and Big Wave Bay in a military-style operation organised as part of the HK125 clean-up initiative

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Paul Niel clings to a rock at a beach in the far corner of Big Wave Bay, in Shek O, looking at the amount of rubbish that has accumulated over the years, washed up from the ocean. Photo: Xiaomei Chen

Published: 12:30pm, 20 Oct 2017Updated: 11:19am, 21 Oct 2017

In May, Esther Röling and Paul Niel climbed, scrambled and swam their way around Hong Kong Island, on a first of its kind ‘coasteering’ expedition. The Hong Kong-based couple spent a week out on the rocks, braving the elements – including a black rainstorm – day and night to create the city’s first coastal pollution map in partnership with the Open University of Hong Kong, which provided them with a device for measuring water quality along the coastline.

“A lot has happened since then,” says Niexl. “We have mapped 163 trash sites around the island using the Global Alert app. The first batch of raw data is already available, but we are still waiting for the analysis from the Open University of the water samples. It looks we will have it a bit later this year.”

Couple who’ll walk, climb and swim around Hong Kong Island to create the city’s first map of coastal pollution

The two experienced climbers are now ready to get back out onto the cliffs, this time with the help of some fellow adventurers, to launch what they’re calling an ‘assault’ on Hong Kong’s coastal rubbish. On Saturday October 21, they will rally together a team of outdoor enthusiasts, including rock climbers, kayakers and fishermen, to target some of the less accessible rubbish sites that they found on during the Round the Island expedition.

This is no ordinary clean-up though: while most of Hong Kong’s clean-up groups target flagged beaches, these will be abseiling, climbing, rappelling and swimming to difficult to reach spots. “We will target the coastal stretch between Shek O and Big Wave Bay,” says Röling. “Most Hongkongers know these two beach areas, but in between are a lot of small inlets, coves and cliffs where rubbish has been piling up for years. On our last scout we found a whole cave full of styrofoam. It’s so sad.”

Robert Lockyer is director of operations at Aquameridian Conservation and Education Foundation.

While they originally identified 163 sites, some of them were so close together that they dropped the number to 125 key sites, and together with Dr Robert Lockyer, director of operations at

Aquameridian Conservation and Education Foundation have launched ‘HK125’, a new initiative focusing on organising annual clean-ups of the worst affected spots around the island.

The group had planned to start earlier, but their efforts were postponed by a string of typhoons and the devastating 1,000-tonne palm oil spill in the waters southwest of the city in August.