Community
Coastal cleanup volunteers collected 1,331 lbs of trash at Little Bay in 2024
About 140 volunteers collected 1,331 pounds of trash at Little Bay Beach and the nearby pond in an hour and a half during the International Coastal Cleanup on Saturday 21 September 2024, The Daily Herald reported.
By SXM Daily ยท
Reported 22 September 2024.
Some 140 volunteers collected 1,331 pounds of debris at Little Bay Beach and the nearby pond on Saturday 21 September 2024, as part of the annual International Coastal Cleanup, The Daily Herald reported. The work took about an hour and a half.
Illustrative: the Little Bay area, Sint Maarten (file photo).
Photo: Remy Gumbs (shady P) / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0.
Most of the waste was single-use plastic, including bottles, caps, cups, straws and Styrofoam food containers, according to the Herald. Volunteers also found large amounts of construction debris along paths and in the nearby mangroves, as well as a car battery and parts of a floating dock. Items were logged with the Clean Swell app.
Who took part
The cleanup was led by the St. Maarten Development Fund (SMDF), Environmental Protection in the Caribbean (EPIC), Grant Thornton, the St. Maarten Pride Foundation and the Nature Foundation, the paper said. Volunteers came from community groups, businesses and several schools.
It was also part of the "Plastic Free SXM" initiative launched by the Department of Interior and Kingdom Relations, supported by the EU-funded RESEMBID programme, according to the Herald. SMDF programme and development manager Melanie Choisy said the day showed the need for a joint effort by individuals, businesses and policymakers to cut plastic and Styrofoam pollution.