Jamaica’s garbage problem exposed

Volunteers participating in this year’s International Coastal Cleanup collected 32,831 pieces of waste, including 7,164 plastic beverage bottles, 6,248 bottle caps and 4,005 plastic bags.

The figures emerged from the Jamaica Environment Trust’s (JET) flagship clean-up activity at the Palisadoes Go-Kart Track on September 19, where 665 volunteers removed 4,862.5 pounds of waste from the coastline during the annual environmental initiative.

Among the items collected were 2,512 plastic and foam fragments, and 1,734 food wrappers.

For environmental consultancy EnviroTek Group, which participated in the clean-up, the findings show that beach pollution is about much more than what ends up on the shoreline.

“Once you see the numbers, it becomes difficult to think of coastal pollution as simply a beach-cleaning issue,” said Raymond Pryce, environmental scientist and CEO at EnviroTek Group.

“What we find along the coastline is evidence of what is happening further upstream, in our communities, drains, gullies, waterways and consumption patterns. The clean-up removes what is already there, but the data helps us ask how we [can] prevent it from getting there in the first place.”

International Coastal Cleanup Day is observed globally each year to mobilise volunteers in removing litter from beaches, waterways and coastal areas, while documenting the debris collected.