Clean Up Barbados calls for more attention to illegal dump sites

This is the call from the Project Coordinator and Administrative Director of the Future Centre Trust, implementing organisation for the Clean Up Barbados Campaign taking place today across the nation. The event, in its second year, is focused on cleaning areas noted for littering and illegal dumping. The event is held on the third weekend of each year thanks to its affiliation with the Clean Up The World global initiative implemented in over 120 countries.

Ms Garofano explained the sickness she experienced, when she completed a site visit with the members of the Barbados Defence Force Regiment the day before the event, “I literally felt sick and very upset when we came across the impromptu illegal dump site in the Malvern area of St John. It is a cart road that is literally being transformed into a mini unengineered landfill, with debris strewn on the side of the track for quite a distance.” She added, “When we got out of the vehicle and saw what was laden before us, the inspection party were simply speechless with the amount of material before us. What can you say to such an indiscrimate disregard for physical environs, space that is between cane fields no less, where toxins from all of this is happily leaching into the ground and affecting the surrounding area.”

Her concerns were raised as she asked the question of what happens when the area is cleaned up tomorrow, how is further dumping stopped? “How do we stop these people from using this area again? Whose responsibility is it to stop this from happening? This site, in a similar fashion to last year’s Blackman’s Gully location from which over twenty tonnes of waste were removed, is an ideal location for hidden cameras. How else can we stop it? This is adults showing their children that it is perfectly okay to deal with waste in this way. How many children are in the trucks of people dumping? And the other disturbing aspect to this, is they know it’s wrong! Why else would you drive down a cart road to dump your waste materials?”

It will be interesting to see what is taken out of this area in terms of tonnage. As is often highlighted, it is not necessarily the persons who own the waste, but the haulers who find it easier to drive down to these remote locations and dump, rather than taking the materials to the transfer station or to even be recycled – where money can be earned!

We hope today’s efforts, along the beaches and in the areas which were identified to us as areas of concern, will help to once again, clean up the island, but to more importantly, raise awareness for the need to keep our island home clean on an every day basis.

The Future Centre Trust plans to develop a series of video and audio messages during the next year, to be shown as frequently as possible and to become the backbone to a public awareness campaign which will be aimed at all levels of community. “Attitudes must change; change must come; to ensure change comes, education is key. This is where we would like our efforts to be expanded. We invite partners to the development of these messages. They are a must. WE MUST CHANGE OUR HABITS!” says Garofano.

To borrow the tagline of Ms Tamara Marshall, Patron to the Clean Up Barbados 2010 Campaign – Keep Barbados Clean – It’s a beautful thing! The Future Centre Trust thanks all of its volunteers and contributors for helping to do exactly that. The Trust looks forward to a different result next year – less dumping and less littering, thanks to a change of habit.