DO YOUR PART
Tue, 10/04/2016 - 12:00am
Public urged to keep environment clean
IT is each individual’s responsibility to keep the environment clean, insists National Co-ordinator of the Barbados chapter of the Caribbean Youth Environmental Network (CYEN) Barbados, Sade Deane.
“Generally, there is a lack of personal responsibility from individuals. It is not one entity’s job to do something about garbage and because there is a lack of personal responsibility, some people find it okay to say, ‘Well I don’t see a can, so I may as well just drop it here.’ You cannot do that at all,” she asserted.
Deane expressed concern that while students at the primary and secondary schools adhere to the message of not littering, outside of the school environment they fall back into the practice as the general public continues to engage in such behaviours, and therefore urged persons to consider
how they are harming the fragile environment, especially the marine areas.
Such a stance is critical, she said, when considering how much waste is left on the nation’s beaches daily.
In fact, she highlighted that during its clean up of several beaches over the weekend, including River Bay, Maycock’s Beach, Half Moon Fort and Sherman’s Beach, between 400 to 500 pounds of waste was collected.
Much of that waste consisted of what she described as single-use plastic food items, including styrofoam containers, wrappers, straws, cups, plates, forks and spoons, metal and plastic bottle caps, and plastic bottles.
Outlining that much of this waste ended up in the oceans and was consumed by the very fish persons eat daily, she insisted that littering had serious repercussions over time.
She made the comments during a press conference at the Courtyard Marriott yesterday to speak on the partnership between the CYEN and Washington DC-based environmental advocacy group Ocean Conservancy, in seeking out solutions to protect the marine ecosystem and oceans around the world.
As CYEN seeks to meet its target of cleaning 50 local beaches as part of its activities as the island marks its Golden Jubilee in a few weeks, Deane said that further clean-ups are planned for the west, south and east coast beaches and urged Barbadians to come out and lend a hand. (JMB)