Red Cross Labasa branch is on a mission to ‘Save the Fish, Clean the Drain’ of Labasa Town. 

This campaign rhetorically refers to cleaning drains by picking up kitchen waste, diapers and empty tins in a bid to safeguard the marine ecology. 

The campaign is part of the week-long Red Cross nationwide clean-up campaign, which ends tomorrow. 

In the Northern Division, about eight volunteers faced the gruesome heat, working tirelessly to collect as much drain waste as possible. 

It’s an “action of environmental clean-up that goes a long way,” as youth volunteer Asenaca Divavi Navuku puts it. 

Ms Navuku said everyone had the responsibility to respond to environmental litter evident in our drains. 

Simple acts like this, she said, helped the environment to heal from the careless littering often practised by people. 

“If you really look at it, cleaning the drain doesn’t only help the environment to be spotless, but also saves marine life,” Ms Navuku said. 

“As we pick a single plastic or tin, we are at least saving one to two fish from suffocating, whether it’d be at the drain, flood gates, or even at the sea because the majority of the rubbish ends up in the deep ocean, and that’s a known fact.” 

Not taken by surprise, the team of eight said the common items of rubbish they collected were diapers, tins, and beer bottles. 

Ms Navuku is pleading with everyone to exercise caution and dispose of rubbish in proper places so it doesn’t end up at sea. 

The majority pollution done to the environment is committed by humans.

This calls for civic pride and patriotism by not littering.

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