Over 65 members from four of the five clubs in the zone — Diamond, Stubbs, Mesopotamia, Richland Park, and Biabou – cleaned Argyle Beach on Saturday as part of activities to mark Earth Day.
Two skips of garbage containing over 50 jumbo-size garbage bags were collected.
The garbage consisted mainly of plastic, namely soda and other household bottles and plastic bags.
There was an area that seemed to have been used for the dumping of household appliances such as televisions, refrigerators and stoves.
World Earth Day was observed on Monday under the theme “Planet vs Plastic”.
Zonal Coordinator and Coordinator of the Stubbs and Diamond Police Youth Clubs Yoland London said the groups cleaned as much of the beach as they could have.
“However, some untouched areas remained heavily littered and, as promised, we would return to continue our clean-up efforts of the area,” London said.
She added that something needs to be done, perhaps at the policy and enforcement level “to start seriously penalising persons caught dumping illegally.
“As a community, persons need to be on the lookout and willing to report any activity of such with the hopes of deterring persons from committing this dangerous act on our environment,” London said.
Secretary of Stubbs Police Youth Club, Kaylan Browne said the clean-up was especially important to the youth club members.
“It exposed them to the extent of littering/illegal dumping that takes place on our beaches leading to the destruction of our marine life and planet. It also drives home the message of the importance of playing our part individually to preserve our environment,” Browne said.
While the 5 club members should be highly commended for the great job done in cleaning Argyle Beach (looks more like Corner Rock) I have been advocating for some time that steps be taken to reclaim the real Argyle Beach that some of us called Mt.Pleasant Beach on the other side of Corner Rock while growing up. That’s the big part now called Rawawou. There was a time we played all sorts of sports on the beach including swimming which is now all gone, and that pool is really no substitute for a multi-purpose beach. Reclammation does not require high technology as I have learned from experience in many parts of the world. In Barbados they tried to create a deep water harbour for the coast guard through construction of a groen, but in time what they got was not a deep harbour as expected, but instead the groen created a surf/swell break that caused the area to be filled up with sand, that led to one of the best beaches in Barbados- called Miami Beach! With a bit of foresight while AIA was being constructed the expert planners could have looked at the eroded beach and consider its reclammation ghrough creation of a groen by dumping some of those huge rocks along the runway, from that point we call Salt Pond right out into th sea, so that by the time AIA opened they would have had a reclaimed Argyle beach for islanders and tourists. Would be interesting to hear whether consideratioin was ever given to a project of this sort.