Plastic Problem

Plastic is still a major issue in Barbados and hopefully with the training and education received at the second annual Dive Fest Kiddies’ Swim Awareness Programme, children can understand the importance of not littering, and even reduce the use of plastic.
This comment was made by Andre Miller, instructor at Barbados Blue and Co-ordinator of the event, as he spoke with The Barbados Advocate on the sidelines of yesterday’s event.

“Right now we have an issue of plastic in Barbados, so one of the main things we did was to get them to understand the importance of not littering. Even this morning we caught a few kids littering and we had to make a point of why they cannot do that,” he said.

“So we wanted to make a point of them knowing that even if they’re home and they live in St. Thomas and they throw something out of their window it will find its way in the ocean.”

Miller noted that it was great to know and see that many of the primary schools and other organisations were starting to highlight and teach about environmental issues in Barbados. He revealed that at the event yesterday morning they had quite a few students from Bay Primary School and some members from the Duke of Edinburgh and Girl Guides.

Nikola Simpson, a marine biologist who also helps out with Dive Fest, noted that they also spoke to the children on the issue of sargassum seaweed and taught them that it was not only negative.

“We also have compostable cups, and even though they look like regular plastic cups, they are actually made of plant based material such as corn starch sugar cane. So we are just trying to fit into the whole theme of Dive Fest and moving towards and trying to have an environmentally sustainable country and economy,” she said.

“We are trying to teach them that whatever they do on land ends up in the sea, so we spent some time this morning trying to show them the interlinkages of everything they do and show them how important the ocean is.”