Residents urged to stop dropping litter on beaches

With the beauty of Barbados’ beaches considered a main selling point for visitors, young leaders within the Barbados Hotel and Tourism Association are calling for Barbadians to respect the seascape and stop dropping litter on the island’s beaches.

Chairman of the Barbados Hotel and Tourism Association’s Young Leaders Development Committee Jamal Griffith, who led a team of 12 to clean up Pebbles Beach, at Radisson Aquatica early Sunday morning, says the eight bags of garbage collected included wine bottles, pieces of material for makeshift shelters and all types of plastic.

He says that in taking the lead of the committee its members simply wanted to give back to Bim and contribute to cleaning the island’s beaches as tourism stakeholders.

“We just wanted to do something for the community because the beach is a very integral part of Barbadian culture and what Barbadians do and we wanted to give back to that place and we wanted to spread that message of trying to keep our natural environment as clean as possible. Don’t litter, try to recycle as much as possible, if you take something to the beach try to take it back home,” Griffith said.

Griffith says locals need to be more mindful of how they leave the state of the beaches as it takes effort to clean them.

“There is nobody at the beach actually cleaning; somebody has to come and do it, somebody has to be paid to do it or mindful citizens like ourselves or other people would have to take their time to do it. We don’t mind putting the effort in but there should be no need in the first place.”

The cleanup was one of the first initiatives the young leaders decided they wanted to pursue since coming to office. The committee was initiated to execute the cleanup earlier but due to COVID-19 it was pushed back.

Committee member Nikita Warrington said she sees it as vital for youth to be involved in the tourism sector especially as they are the future of the industry.

The group was formed in 2020 and was the brainchild of former Chairman of the BHTA Stephen Austin who was also present at the beach cleanup. (MR)