Noticias

With the aim of helping to conserve our local ecosystem, a team of more than 200 volunteers, including students, collaborators and the general public, joined Uninorte’s most recent beach clean-up day, called ‘Hands to the sea ‘, held on Saturday, April 30, in Punta Roca. During the activity, hundreds of plastic bottles, shoes, flip-flops, Styrofoam, PVC tubes, foam and caps were collected for subsequent recycling at the hands of the Asorevivir foundation for recyclers.

This activity, organized by the Environmental Sustainability Directorate and the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, was joined by volunteers from the companies Ultracem, ISA Transelca and students from the Universidad de la Costa (CUC). Engineer Carlos Clavijo, director of Environmental Sustainability at Uninorte, pointed out that the event seeks to create environmental awareness in the university community. “These cleanups seek to raise awareness and sensitize our community about the result of poor waste management and how we should act in the face of this serious situation that occurs around the world. We must generate a new way of thinking about caring for the environment.”

During the cleanup, one of the things that became most evident was the accumulation of wood waste around the entire coast of Punta Roca. Engineer Clavijo explained why there are so many trunks and the function they fulfill. “The arrival of these trunks is the result of deforestation processes that occur in the interior of the country and that arrive here, due to the mouth of the Magdalena River. Although not many people know it, this wood plays a very important role on this beach, and it is that it serves as a kind of spur or breakwater that prevents beach erosion”. He then adds that this wood should not be removed, since, although it is the product of ecosystem damage, in Punta Roca it fulfills an environmental conservation role.

Danna Diaz, a seventh-semester International Relations student, said she had made a great contribution to the environment. “I feel like it was totally worth coming. The feeling that you are doing something positive for your beaches, for your environment, is something indescribable”.

“It was a very good cleaning day. Seeing the dedication in the process, the teamwork of the boys and the commitment shows that the objective was achieved: to raise awareness in our community”, concluded Clavijo.