While middle class community organisations that organise beach clean-ups along the Colombo foreshore and at other resorts do receive a modicum of publicity, there are other hands in menial roles devoted to the cleanliness of Sri Lanka’s beaches and/or the security of the hotel surrounds. Let us salute them.

These men sweeping and cleaning up the beach at Nilaweli beach were, as far as I could gather, employees of the village council rather than the hotel nearby