A group of triathletes converged on Mulinu'u on Saturday morning and waded into the sea to remove rubbish along 1 km of the Samoan capital's shore. 

Vehicle tyres, broken bottles, rusty cans, machine parts, dirty diapers, old clothes, shoes and even a few driver's licenses were among the rubbish that was removed from the seabed at Mulinu'u. 

The triathletes' team manager Lani Young said in a statement that the location of their ocean-focused cleanathon is normally the venue for their community races.

"We care about our ocean, especially because we swim in it regularly and can see what's in there," said Mrs. Young. "This is where we have our community races and while we are thankful to be able to swim, bike, and run in our beautiful Samoa, it's sad how much rubbish is being dumped here."

A group of 20 triathletes together with parents braved the morning rain, with goggles and gloves to form a line that walked and swam along a 1km distance following the shore. The line was slow-moving as the triathletes worked together to lug heavier rubbish items to shore, and then return to deeper water to search for more.

The cleanathon took two hours and resulted in many bags of accumulated trash piled up for loading onto a dump truck supplied by local company Young Steel.

At the conclusion of the cleanathon, the Samoa Triathlon Vice President, Falea'ana Wolly Collins appealed to the public to work together to keep our ocean clean.

"We picked up so much rubbish out there, in the sea and on the rocks. Usually, when people do a cleanup, they only get the rubbish here on the land. But when we go out into the water, it's very bad, how much rubbish is there," said Mr. Collins. "We all need a beautiful clean environment. 

"Our ocean is life for fishing and swimming for all of us. We ask please for everyone to take better care of our ocean."

Mr Collins said this was only the first of many ocean cleanups to come and their triathletes would be doing it regularly.

"Everyone is welcome to come help next time," he added.