Photo serie: some easy cleaning rubbish in our fresh waters

[Germie]

During almost every dive we find some rubbish under water, most times plastics. It is easy to take it with you and you don't have to change your diveplan. Put the plastics in your pockets of drysuit or bcd. How easy it is?
There was not a real plan to start this series of pictures. But sometimes it just happens. It started, not on purpose, with this picture about a month ago. A buddy picked up a little can and I took a picture. Technically not a good picture, but I don't know why I didn't delete it. But it was still there on my harddisk.

A week later we dove in Germany in the lake of 'Schloss Dankern'. This is a lake were no fish can live due to a wrong Ph. But it is most times quite clear and the water looks blue. But it is still fresh water.
This time a small bottle was found.

And of course taken with us.

Last sunday we were again in our houselake. This time we decided to swim another round as we did in the past weeks. Not that we don't dive this round, but sometimes you think another way is better to see something. I have done over 200 dives in this lake, so there are no hidden gems anymore. The lake has normally in summer a lot of fish, most famous are the big pikes. In winter you see some small fish, but not a lot. I took my camera with me, hoping to see a pike and practising wide angle with modell pictures.
But during this dive we saw a lot of rubbish. So the subject of my pictures changed.

And this is what we took out in just 1 dive:

What do I want to achieve with this pictures?
For non divers: some rubbish will disappear under water, but it is still there. And it is not going away by itself.

For divers: it is easy to take the rubbish you see on a dive, just take it and put it in a pocket of your bcd or your drysuit. You don't need to change your diveplan. If 10 divers take 1 piece of rubbish during a dive, then already 10 pieces are cleared.

And maybe I can take less of these kind of pictures in future. That would be nice.

 

[chris kippax]

Nice work!

 

[Storker]

Good job!

On a side note, I was a bit intrigued to see you (or is it your buddy?) wearing the compass all the way out on the right hand. Can you comment on pros/cons of carrying it like that instead of carrying it on the forearm? Would you imagine any issues using that configuration with dryglove rings?

 

[Germie]

Good job!

On a side note, I was a bit intrigued to see you (or is it your buddy?) wearing the compass all the way out on the right hand. Can you comment on pros/cons of carrying it like that instead of carrying it on the forearm? Would you imagine any issues using that configuration with dryglove rings?

I always wear my compass on the right hand.
I am not on the picture, but you see some other divers do it also. I prefer this, on the left hand is the goodmann of your light. On the forearm is more difficult to use it. I have on my left arm there already my ccr handset (or 2 if I dive with bailout ccr), or a computer. On the right hand I have my backupcomputer on the forearm. To have the compass on the hand it makes navigating more easier. I don't need to adjust my arm position to use it.
No problems with drygloves. Fingers stay free.

 

[Divectionist]

We'd be out on an open ocean reef a handful of nautical miles offshore and find beer bottles down there. Fishermen just throw them as they go through them. They are a special breed in Australia.

I always carry up what I can, but have no pockets left so I just hold it. Makes for good beer drinking underwater pics at the safety stop if nothing else.

 

[Kharon]

I carry a mesh bag on every dive to pick up trash. It always amazes me how people toss stuff overboard right by the boat launch. Would it be so hard to leave it in the boat till you are on shore and find a trash bin?

 

[Storker]

Fun - and hopefully somewhat relevant - fact: For the last three years, our Diving Association has organized cleanup actions. They've secured sponsor money and coordinate the effort, while the initiative is on the dive clubs. Any expenses are refunded, there is a reward system for the clubs, which apparently isn't in conflict with diving for work regulations, it's a small effort to rid the ocean for some of all the crap that's been thrown into it over the years, and there's a good opportunity for positive PR for the clubs. That kind of initiative tends to be popular with the local press. Win-win-win.

Although it probably doesn't mean much on a global scale, it probably has some impact on a local scale. It started with an initiative to pick up lost lobster pots, which continue to catch lobster and have an impact on the lobster population for years after the pots have been lost, and it just sort of snowballed from there.