Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Rumple]

So I found a group of foreigners who were going to Taean to clean up oil at Padori Beach. They were meeting in Daejeon, so I signed up and met them there. We took a chartered bus to the beach. There were in total about 6 guys, and about 22 girls. Most of them were nursing students at Hapcheon University. They were all very friendly and nice, and quite a few spoke some English. We had a GREAT time.

The Beach: We arrived at Padori at about 10:30am. We were given coveralls, boots, gloves and masks, and rags. We marched out to the beach area, and from a distance, you couldn't tell there was anything wrong with the beach, which is a rocky, Pacfic-coast style type. There was a pretty good wind, so you couldn't smell anything.

The cleanup effort is large-scale. I think there were 6 or 8 different crews I saw, maybe 250 people in total. We were directed to a spot about a 5 minute walk down the beach, and we cleaned there. The work was pleasant. We were mostly picking up rocks and wiping sludge from them. The oil has mixed with seawater and dried a little, making a substance with the viscosity of the kind of grease you lube your car with. After about an hour, you start to learn where the oil collects and you go mining for black gold...flipping over large rocks to find bigger deposits of sludge.

The beach is desolated. I didn't see any living thing on it, besides us. No birds. No crabs. The little snails on the rocks are dead.

We broke for lunch at noon. They had a soup line, and I had soup and rice. After lunch it was back to the beach. We stopped at 3:00 to get back to Daejeon.

All in all, I worked for about 4 hours, and estimate I removed about a half pound of oil from the beach. Doesn't seem like much, but if 300 volunteers a weekend day do that, that's 300 pounds a weekend. Not bad.

I wore clothes I was willing to part with, and I didn't ruin them, at all. The coveralls took care of that, and I spent half my time laying on my side, my stomach, or wedged into the rocks, to get into the cracks where the sludge collects. I brought an mp3 player and chilled while I worked. By the way, the beach has some BEAUTIFUL sights. Crashing waves, island in the distance, its great.

I'm planning on organizing a trip from the Busan/Masan/Jinju area next weekend. If you want to go, let me know. We have full permission from immigration to do this work.

[kiwiduncan]

Good on you Rumple. Did you go with KFEM or some other group? I'm planning to go up there with Yeosu KFEM again at some point in the near future.

[Rumple]

[VanIslander]

[Rumple]

Will do.