Robin’s Bay Beach In St. Mary Gets Cleaned Up

MORANT BAY, September 20 (JIS):

The Robin’s Bay Beach in St. Mary now sports a new look, thanks to a recent community stakeholder clean-up exercise.

This initiative was led by GATE Recycling Groups in partnership with Robin’s Bay Primary School and Robin’s Bay Seventh-day Adventist Church.

Some 3,000 soda bottles, 1,500 juice bottles, garbage and debris were removed during the beach clean-up on Thursday, September 12, which serves as a fitting prelude to International Coastal Clean-up Day on September 21.

GATE Recycling’s Mario McGregor told JIS News that the company, which was established in 2019, made a strategic decision to conduct more beach clean-ups outside of Kingston and to target school-aged children.

“We decided to start to partner with schools in order to get the children aware of what is recycling, how to protect the environment and the environmental impacts [of certain actions]. It’s good to create the awareness from now [and to] stimulate the next generation to see the importance of recycling,” he explained.

Mr. McGregor applauded the dedicated efforts displayed by the entire school population, including teachers and the principal, as well as members of the church and the wider community, while emphasising the importance of “[keeping] our beaches clean”.

“A lot of persons enjoy swimming or do fishing, and a clean environment is a healthy and safe environment,” he stated.

Additionally, Mr. McGregor said, “We know for a fact that it’s unhealthy if we are ingesting the fish and they are eating the plastics.”

“For us, keeping our beaches clean is a very healthy way to start. It should not just be when we go overseas [that] we do recycling; we need to start it from here [in Jamaica],” the entrepreneur declared.

Meanwhile, for Past President of the Robin’s Bay Primary School Parent/Teachers’ Association, Carl Shirley, the students’ active involvement in the initiative was “incredible to witness”.

“It was beautiful to behold. The enthusiasm alone made the effort worthwhile. In this day and age, children are not so cultured towards [the] ‘pick them up, let’s keep the place tidy’ [concept]. But to see them coming out like that and putting everything in it, it was just something that was heartwarming,” Mr. Shirley said.

For International Coastal Clean-up Day this weekend, GATE Recycling is planning two days of activities.

This will begin with a clean-up of a section of the Palisadoes strip in Kingston and, potentially, a section of Mezgar Gardens in St. Thomas on Saturday, September 21.

On Sunday, September 22, a clean-up of the Port Henderson beach in Portmore is being planned. The starting time for both days will be 8:00 a.m.

GATE Recycling Groups can be reached on Instagram, @gate.recycling_groups.