Since the beginning of the In-No-Plastic project launched in February 2022, Nature Foundation Sint Maarten and its volunteers have collected 3682,45 kg of household waste on and around the beaches and 1317,5 kg of plastic waste removed from the seabed. That's a total of 4 kg of rubbish of all kinds that will no longer pollute nature, so beautiful and to be preserved on the island!
“We have calculated that on average 65% of the debris we clean up on beaches is plastic! The remaining 35% is a combination of glass, wood, metal, rubber and other materials.
For underwater clean-ups, the percentage of plastic pieces is 56,5%”, underlines Christel Horst, coordinator of the Nature Foundation project.
“Unfortunately, not all of these cleanups have a long-term impact. Thrown away trash seems to resurface as soon as we take it away. Given the amount we have collected, it is unfortunate that we find so much waste in nature!
At Guana Bay, there are all kinds of waste, whether plastic, household or other.
The most difficult to access beaches, namely Back Bay and Guana Bay, collect most of the marine litter in the form of fishing nets, fishing lines, drums, etc. Other beaches are littered with household items left behind by people. For example, 90% of items removed from Guana Bay during the monitoring period were plastic.
In Mullet Bay, we found over 400 cigarette butts in our search area during a beach monitoring activity, along with a large amount of bottle caps, straws and microplastics.
In Cay Bay we found mainly glass and plastic bottles on the beach as well as a huge amount of food packaging.
We even found several intact skeletons of deceased animals in boxes.
CupeCoy beach is generally very clean compared to other beaches, litter collected on site includes food wrappers from cans/bottles, even clothing.
However, in the bushes between the beach and the parking lot, it's a different story. There are objects such as thick plastic cables, metal wire, chairs, bottles, food containers”.
This is the alarmist observation of the members of Nature Foundation Sint Maarten. Protecting the environment is everyone's business! _AF
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