550lbs garbage collected on one beach
(CNS): Around 50 volunteers picked up over 550lbs of garbage from one beach in just one day this weekend, highlighting the continued issue of trash collecting around our coastline. In one of Plastic Free Cayman’s monthly beach clean-ups, the unpaid trash pickers worked at Sandhole in West Bay, and in addition to the hefty haul of rubbish, they also identified a lot of microplastic, a growing and worrying problem for marine creatures that directly consume it and ultimately for humans who eat the fish.
“We did some sifting for microplastics and were disturbed with our findings,” the volunteers said on a social media posting.
Much of the garbage on Grand Cayman beaches is washed here from elsewhere, but the campaigners behind Plastic Free Cayman continue to urge everyone living here to stop accepting or buying single-use plastics, as they continue to press government for a ban. Alongside the multiple pieces of single-use plastics were syringes and even large pieces of carpet, which had clearly been dumped here and had not washed up.
The army of volunteers who regularly help clean up the local beaches were joined this weekend by groups from Cayman Turtle Centre, Miss World Cayman contestants, and Island Electronics. DoE officer Casey Keller also lent a hand to the team.
Over 50 volunteers helped remove 550lbs worth of garbage from Sand Hole beach on Saturday 6th July. Groups from Cayman…
Posted by Plastic Free Cayman on Sunday, 7 July 2019
Category: Land Habitat, Science & Nature
99% of the trash that floats up here is made in the US.
I haven’t seen trump or any of his cronies wash ashore yet. Aaaayyyoooo!
Anyone consider the garbage that the cruise ships throw overboard at night when no one is looking.. I’ve seen video footage of a crew member throwing a large black bin bag right out the open hatch.
I tried to find the photo/video but only found these;
https://www.cruiselawnews.com/2011/06/articles/pollution/environmental-group-discovers-illegal-cruise-dump-site/
https://www.cruiselawnews.com/2012/08/articles/pollution/cruise-ship-dumping-of-trash-feces-conflicts-with-industrys-image-as-steward-of-the-seas/
https://www.cruiselawnews.com/2013/12/articles/cruise-pollution/video-msc-cruise-ship-dumps-garbage-bags-off-coast-of-brazil/
https://www.cruiselawnews.com/2016/12/articles/pollution/deliberate-dumping-coverup-and-lies-doj-fines-princess-cruises-40000000/
A few things, the rubbish bins at the public beaches are often overflowing so there’s that. People don’t chase after trash that blows away, or just don’t bother to throw it away. Cigarettes, good god people, THROW THEM IN A BIN. Bars, you should do your part to stop using 50 plastic cups per person per visit. I go to sunset house and get at least 5. I try to ask to just use the one but they don’t listen. Give a 50 cent discount per drink as long as you use 1 cup. No straws, never any straws. Buy reusable if you must have one and just bring it along. They make collapsible ones now.
Call Junk and get yourself your own set of recycle bins that they will collect from your home. Reuse plastics you have as much as you can. AND just bring your own bags to the shops! I never use the plastic bags they provide either because my veggies can sit in the cart until i bag them in my reusable bags. Okay, small veggies like okra and snap peas are hard but I do have my own small reusable bags just for that. They are light weight so they don’t cost me more when weighing produce.
Just a few ideas that are so simple.
It’s not my problem if the bins at Public Beach are full. Why should I pick up someone else’s junk? Whose paying me to do it?
That attitude will get you far in life.
Don’t complain then when the beaches are nasty and when people start buying up the beachfront property and excluding you from it. Plenty of times I see trash on the beach that I didn’t throw there and I pick it up. It’s called doing your civic duty.
Your attitude matches that full bin; disgusting.
Same reason why we can’t get anywhere with better waste management practices now. People like YOU who don’t feel obliged to do your part as a HUMAN on this earth and all for what? Monehhhhhh, ole fool.
Anybody paid you to make this dumb comment? I bet not, but you still did it though lol have the same attitude towards saving your island fooleh!
Agreed that we can all find ways to reduce, but eliminating or banning all plastics is, sadly, not rational policy at this point in history.
Hard to imagine that CIG will ban single use plastics when the largest business interest on island is a key producer of said products (Dart/Syfo are all owned by the same conglomerate).
Ken is the heir of funds sourced from global environmental degradation, but the credit vulture will tell you he’s a land baron.
Nobody is banning anything here…except maybe same sex civil rights.
All fair commentary howver it must be remembered that most of the beach garbage comes on the waves!!
Some people are down right nasty, point blank and period! You know how many times I am driving on the road behind private cars and public bus and have to dodge my car getting hit by the garbage coming out of the vehicle. People need to take more civic pride in this country.
Not just this country – THE WORLD.
And I bet the people throwing are not American, British or Canadians…..
The smokers are!
I witnessed an American cruise shipper drink a beer and throw it in to the seagrapes near Calico.
Stop trying to act like anyone who isn’t Caymanian is a blessing to the earth.
I think they mean Jamaican….
Nice idea, but, there are tropical health and sanitation realities which absolutely warrant continued reduced use of single use plastics (until such time that affordable and practical vegetable alternatives exist). Which is why plastic garbage bags were surely used to contain and remove these 550 lbs of trash. Similarly, I’m not picking up other people’s rescue dog foulings, routinely left behind from their anti-cruelty leash-less “freedom” walks across my land, with my bare hands. For now, we have to use a bag.
It’s crazy that I (someone that was out there on Saturday morning) have to share this earth with people like you (who never does anything to help but has the nerve and energy to come on here and make smart ass comments).
DO BETTER!
Did you hypocrites weave bags out of burlap for the 550lbs of trash, or did you use the big single use the plastic bags we all see in your social media posts?
If you are sanctimoniously and hypocritically lording your sunburns over non-volunteers, without acknowledging the reality of your own use of single use plastic, then maybe you should rethink why you’re in a fluff.
Logic does not permeate emotional; leftist emotional brain. Right now, single use plastics are the new boogeyman.
Therefore no more, garbage bags, medical syringes, foods wrapped in plastics, goods wrapped in plastics, toothpaste tubes, plastic pharmaceutical medicine containers, IV bags, and of course, no more lethal plastic straws that will end life on earth as we know it.
The fact that 99.99999% of all garbage on the beaches washes in from other countries, and that banning single use plastics in Cayman will amount to absolutely nothing in terms of accounting for the plastics in the ocean, is absolutely irrelevant.
What IS important is how we FEEL about it and how we FEEL about ourselves.
So yes! Ban single use plastics because it certainly sounds nice, it makes me feel good, and gosh-dawnnit, people like me when I say it!
Or, you could possibly see that by reducing your plastic usage, your own crap will not get blown out to sea to land on the distant shores of someone else’s backyard.
It may be minuscule, but if everybody changed even slightly, it would make a positive difference.
It’s not suggested that humans stop using plastic completely, but they just stop unnecessary wastage. Grow up, you share the planet with other people and animals.
Grow up?!? Frozen foods, sterile products, sanitation and health are just some of the grown up consumer reasons we ALL have to endure single use plastics, until there is a practical and economic global alternative. Only children would advocate banning things without presenting rational alternatives.
Your comments could fill a rubbish heap!
The wealthy landowners should employ local crews to clear trash at regular intervals, not volunteers, and not during turtle nesting season.
I was in one of the bulk stores on Saturday and saw several pallets of boxes of plastic bags (called t-shirt bags for the shape). Stacked 5ft high x 4ft x4ft… Guess we’re not reeeeeallly going plastic free then, eh?
Why aren’t property owners being fined for failing to clear and maintain their land, especially beaches? If beach litter were snow, property owners would be obliged to shovel it within 12 hrs. Cayman property owners seem to think they can acquire the asset of a property without the accompanying liabilities to look after it. Dart is one of the worst offenders. We need to update the Registered Land Law to insert the basic responsibilities of land owners, especially those with incredible means at their disposal to hire work crews and create local jobs.
You know what beach sucks… rumpoint. Not because of waste as much as that dutty sea grass. some one plz fix.
Don’t mean to be a party pooper but I find it to be a huge waste of time to just dump it at the, well, dump.
Find recyclable materials to recycle, but regular washed up trash would be better off just left there instead of contributing to the size of mount trashmore.
If we collected every bit of washed up trash, where would we put our imported trash?
seriously 8:34 am?? You think it’s a better idea to leave the trash on the beach, to end up in our seas, then to pick it up? I’m sure some of what was collected is recyclable materials… but the other trash is better off rotting on top of Mt Trashmore than going into the ocean, full stop!
What really needs to happen is OUR GOVERNMENT NEEDS TO WAKE UP AND SPEAK UP AS TO WHY THEY DON’T FIND SINGLE USE PLASTICS A PROBLEM?!! Get off your lazy, ignorant asses and address the public as to why every other small island is making changes and we are NOT!!
“You think it’s a better idea to leave the trash on the beach, to end up in our seas, then to pick it up?”
Where da rahtid you think the trash came from?? It washed up and will wash right back out to where it came from with the next hurricane.
Cayman’s dump has no room for our own, much less trash originating from other countries!!
11:41 am- you’re an idiot. So what if some trash blew in from elsewhere, we also have plenty of our own to pick up from the arseholes who throw it out their car windows! Regardless of where it came from, it’s our responsibility to the planet to try our best to keep it clean. Your reasoning is sickening! I’d hate to see what your dwellings look like!
How much blew their from our very own dump? Isn’t all of this ironic? People picking garbage on the beach when such an ecological disaster and eyesore like Mt. Trashmore goes unaddressed? Garbage isn’t even being picked residentially!! Get protesting on busy ship days, protest at Camana Bay! Get the news media from around the world involved. Let the world see how dirty Cayman is and how much they don’t care.
same again next week then as this is going on forever. know that and accept it or make the change WORLD
For me, this highlights a sore point – that of beach access. As a Caymanian, I enjoy going to the beach and I respect the beach as a resource to be enjoyed by all. However, It pisses me off when I go to public beaches and find the following discarded items:
• drink bottles/cans and their tops;
• cigarette buts;
• condoms/condom wrappers;
• old slippers;
• chicken/fish/beef bones;
• dog shit;
• chewed gum;
• plastic bags;
• discarded fishing lines; etc.
The private beaches that are owned by the hotels (i.e. the ones that don’t like non-guests and will run you when they see you) are pristine compared to the public beaches. It pisses me off that I, who respect the beaches, can’t access clean beaches. Yeah, I’m sure some trash washes in from overseas but I’ve watched many times, my own Caymanian people litter the beaches and when I speak up, they usually cop an attitude and want to curse me out. Yet, you hear an outcry from Caymanians about no beach access and how property owners are running the locals from the beach. At the risk of losing my “I-come-ya-by-pain” card, sometimes I wonder if it’s such a bad thing, that the beaches are being bought out and locals are being barred access.
We really need to do better.
The hotels spend money to clean the beaches. Ask your government to clean the public beaches. All it takes is money and effort. Some people litter but most of the beach trash floats in from somewhere else.
More fundamental than that…I think more people in Cayman need to respect the beaches and keep it clean – this includes:
• not littering
• more locals volunteering to clean up the beaches (especially given the trash that washes up on shore)
• speak up when people litter on the beach and possibly name and shame those that don’t comply.
Part of the problem now is attitudes like you’ve mentioned – “…ask the government to…” 😪. Citizens and residents need to live up to their civic responsibilities and stop waiting on government officials to do.
This is Dwayne’s ministerial responsibility. No harm pointing out this failure.
10:57 pm, true, it is everyone’s responsibility. However, what gov’t CAN do is provide more garbage bins for the public to use. It’s really that simple! Join forces w/ JUNK.ky to provide bins for cans, etc so recyclable items can be put in the proper place. Everyone needs to do their part, but gov’t needs to at least give 2 shits to keep our beaches looking as pristine as the ones the hotels keep clean!
@7:47 – Why should CIG pay to have the beaches cleaned? the answer is simple. Take your trash home with you! Like the other poster I have seen Caymanians discard their trash on the beaches, and again, you will get cussed out if you say anything to them.
Caymanians need to start taking pride in their island and stop depending on our expats to clean our beaches, walk our stray dogs, host fundraisers, and care for this island better than we do.
Please just take your trash home with you. Don’t leave it at the beach.
CIG would have the budget for beach clean up (including sargassum) if they didn’t waste our money fighting gay marriage.
And building piers
You mean “ports”…
I agree with you entirely but that won’t do anything to solve literally tons of plastic which is washing ashore on a daily basis.
Yup, those Canadian, British, etc. expats at it again. No manners, no respect.
Those pesky expats cleaning beaches again, how about getting some low risk inmates from HMP to actuallly do something useful instead of smoking weed in the exercise yard all day…..
Agreed.
Stop making everything about race, it’s the clearest indicator of low intelligence.
As is your inability to recognize a sarcastic comment.
But you would agree, 9:42, would you not that the main throwers of trash out of vehicle windows are the lower socioeconomic Jamaicans that we have so many of in GCM and on whom we rely so much just to keep the country going?
No. My Caymanian ex throws stuff down all the time. I am always on his case about it. Our friends are the same way. My complaining about it leads to heated arguments every time.
Agreed, I know some of this does wash up from the ocean but a lot is people living here. You see it on the side of the street too, I don’t understand how people can just throw out trash like this.