Coming together

Zhu Mingyang, 24, never learned how to swim and still can't, even though he's now a certified scuba diver. That's why his contact with the sea — like a lot of people — was limited to staying above the surface with the help of a floaty and perhaps occasionally venturing a little further away from the shore before starting to panic and hastily paddling back.

"I felt like an outsider," said Zhu, who is a second-year graduate student at Qingdao University of Technology (QUT).

After he got his scuba diving certificate in Fiji in 2018, Zhu started to observe the ocean from a completely different angle. "You're submerged in it. You become part of it. The creatures you see down there — the sharks, turtles and octopuses — are nothing like the dead jellyfish that you see flushed onshore," he said.

Zhu felt closer to the sea and sought to join Better Blue as a volunteer. He soon established a student association of Better Blue in his senior year at QUT so that he could bring more of his peers together to participate in ocean protection.

Since then, every year from June to October, when the water is warm enough, Zhu goes on weekly dives with a fellow scuba diver student at the shore area around Qingdao to pick up garbage along the seabed.

"After seeing what the ocean was like in Fiji — great visibility and a great ecosystem — I was disappointed when diving here near Qingdao to find garbage, such as construction waste, tires and wine bottles. And that motivated me to keep doing what I was doing to help make the sea better here in Qingdao," said Zhu.

For non-diver students — who make up the majority of the association — Zhu regularly takes them to the beaches to pick up garbage on land. They sometimes team up with volunteers from another local university, Qingdao University, so that they could cover a larger area.

Better Blue now has branches at nine universities in China, including Zhu's association. He thinks that getting college students involved in environmental protection is a smart move.

"Students have more time compared to those who go to work, allowing them to participate in more events and activities," said Zhu. "They are also more open-minded to take in new ideas instead of holding on to old habits. And with their social connections, they can reach more people to share ideas — to their peers and maybe to their future children."