The Hape Ningbo Team took a trip to a nearby water reservoir—not for picnicking, not for swimming and not for taking a hike around the water basin. We all teamed up on this sunny morning to clean up this beautiful water side nearby our office.

Every year more than 6 billion pounds of garbage, big and microscopic small ends up in our oceans. Much of it travels through rivers and streams that are connected to lakes and reservoirs, significantly contributing to the oceans pollution. Lakes and reservoirs are important in preserving wildlife. They constitute important habitats for plants, varies of fish species, insects and other animals. Also, most of our drinking water derives from reservoirs, lakes, rivers and streams. But these sources of fresh water are scarce. While 70% of our planet is covered by water, only 2.5% is fresh water. And today, billions of people have no access to clean and safe water.

Our water pollution today is a major problem. Sometimes, the best way to tackle big problems is to start small. With mild sunburn, and a bit sand and water in our shoes we made things shiny clean around the nearby water reservoir and had a hell of a time. From plastic bottles to cigarette butts to plastic bags and fishing nets, we removed all the litter that we could find. And, two and a half hours later we had collected 8 bags of garbage. It felt good and we all promise to come back soon.