Plastic Epidemic, pt. 2
Our final count is in!
Yesterday, in just 2 hours and along a stretch of beach/mangrove only 1.3 km long, we collected about 2,300 lbs (two thousand three hundred pounds) of garbage. We were very ambitious in planning this cleanup, and aimed to clean the entire Upper St. Andrew's bay all the way up to La Poterie. However, the quantity of garbage was so overwhelming that we only made it as far north as Simon. The fact that thousands of pounds of garbage, almost 90% of which was plastic, were found in such a small coastal area is cause for concern, and we need to begin conversations about more effective means of waste management on our island, as well as promote smart consumerism and discourage the use of single use plastics.
If you would like more information on the types, quantities, and weights of garbage we collected, feel free to message us and we will share that data with you.
Read more about our cleanups here, and more about this specific cleanup on our Facebook event page.