…and keeping it out

Next Saturday, September 25, is International Coastal Cleanup Day.  On that day volunteers around the world will turn out, trash bags and clipboards in hand, to clear garbage and litter from their shores.  Jamaicans will join them at sites around the island.

The International Coastal Cleanup, organized by The Ocean Conservancy, is the largest volunteer event of its kind.  It’s no ordinary trash pickup.  Everything collected is, counted, weighed and recorded.  The records form part of a massive data base.  Annual reports give both a snapshot and a historical record of the trash dumped in and around the world’s oceans and waterways.

The trash profile shows some interesting regional differences.  As the chart illustrates, the lack of any substantial recycling programs for plastic bags and beverage bottles meant that about half the pieces of coastline trash picked up in Jamaica last year and about a third of collections from the rest of the Caribbean fell into these two categories, compared with about a quarter for all countries combined.  The Jamaican total included nearly 39,000 bottles, and 21,500 plastic bags.

The theme of the 2010 ICC report is “Trash Travels”.  It points out that about 60% of the 7.4 million pounds of trash collected from the world’s shorelines last year was actually dumped somewhere else.  Marine litter – waste that starts on ships or land and ends up in or near the sea – is a threat to public health, safety and prosperity.  It looks really ugly – a bad thing in a region that depends on tourism.  For both people and marine life, it’s a breeding ground for disease and parasites, with the added risk of poison and injury.

It’s fitting that the Marine Park Trust will launch its new marine litter project on Coastal Cleanup Day.  The project (sponsored by the Gulf and Caribbean Fisheries Institute and CAMPAM) will concentrate on Montego Bay’s North Gully corridor, which runs through several inner-city communities before emptying into the Marine Park.  On Cleanup Day, volunteers from the Trust and its local partners will clear trash from the lower end of the North Gully and the adjacent shoreline and shallows.

The project’s goals, according to Coordinator Yanique Hewitt, are to make the public more aware of the importance and value of good waste management, and to create a sense of personal and community responsibility for keeping trash out of the sea.  Project activities will include a combination of public education and developing a litter warden programme.

Continuing the Cleanup Day effort year-round also needs tools and investment.  For the North Gully corridor, this includes a combination of better roads, sediment traps, community sanitary facilities and garbage skips in critical areas, plus the will and the effort to maintain these facilities once they’re in place.

Trust Chairman Blaise Hart notes “We’re very proud to be launching this project with the International Coastal Cleanup.  It reminds us that ‘the environment’ isn’t just endangered species and national parks.  It starts in our houses and our yards.  We are working toward the time when we can go out on Cleanup Day and come back with nothing to report.”

NOTE:  We still need more volunteers and sponsors, some work gloves and a couple of tents.  If you can help, please call 952-5619.