How SWIM Is Helping Clean Lebanon’s Sea, One Cleanup at a Time

Lebanon’s coastline is beautiful, but it has long struggled with pollution, plastic waste, and marine debris. One Lebanese environmental NGO is tackling the problem by bringing communities into the water (literally).

SWIM (Sustainable Waste Intercity Marathon) combines environmental action with swimming, education, and community engagement. Its goal is to help build a cleaner Lebanese sea through collective action and individual responsibility.

SWIM uses open-water swimming as a way to bring attention to Lebanon’s marine environment. Its “swim + clean” model combines swimming events with waste collection along the coast.

The approach encourages people to experience the sea while actively protecting it, so during their cleaning campaigns, the team gears up and goes diving to remove waste from the seabed, underwater caves, and other hard-to-reach areas. The seafloor is riddled with bottles, discarded fishing materials, and other pollutants, so the team works together to give Lebanon’s sea a much-needed cleanup.

One of its major campaigns, “It’s Your Sea,” brought this concept to Lebanon’s entire coastline in 2021. The organization has also organized regular coastal cleanups from north to south. Volunteers collect waste from beaches, cliffs, caves, and other coastal areas.

Their bigger goal goes beyond collecting bags of trash because this approach encourages volunteers to see firsthand where their trash goes and how negatively it impacts our environment. The organization wants environmental responsibility to become a normal part of Lebanese life. Its vision is for a clean Lebanese sea and coastline built through collective effort and individual responsibility.

Their impact so far

And the numbers show just how far SWIM’s efforts have come:

– 17,000+ volunteers

– 5+ years of environmental action

– 150+ events

– 20+ municipalities involved

– 110+ tons of trash removed

Lebanon already has more than enough pollution to ignore. Environmental awareness cannot stop at knowing there is a problem. It has to mean changing how we treat the places we call home. If you would like to volunteer with SWIM to clean Lebanon’s sea, visit their website here to learn more about their upcoming initiatives and how you can get involved.

For more content like this, check out the #Awareness section on our website.

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