And still trash is a problem - from Didier Laplace

JEK

Senior Insider
This is a sad example of what is happening on our island as everywhere else where a place that allows people to regroup and exchange becomes a dump that harms fauna and flora!


Despite the numerous publications of environmental associations and the work of the many volunteers involved in cleaning both on land and on the coast, we still don't understand why this situation continues.


Since 2015, before the arrival of migratory birds, we've been cleaning this place so that the trash you leave behind doesn't impact life in this ecosystem. Unfortunately, over the years, the amount of garbage collected keeps increasing!! There is enough information nowadays about the consequences this waste can have in the short term as well as in the long term... TV, social media (facebook, Instagram) ect..


So why??


The Community has set up benches then trash cans so you can drop your waste. Last month again a grid was dropped off to prevent your waste from ending up in the mangrove and you forced the grid to keep this garbage depositing!?


6 years of cleaning your garbage, not to mention how many broken bottles can hurt people who want to clean what you turn day after day into an open dump! More risk than staphylococcus!


The very day of the last cleaning, the Community removed the benches but it won't be useful if you leave your garbage on the floor. With the wind and animals, they will end up in the canal!


During coastal pickups, we find the same trash as those collected in St Jean. They are from other Caribbean islands. Some people are not lucky enough to have waste processing plants like St Barth or be aware of this issue. You, IF!


Show us that things can change please and arrange a cleaning of this meeting place because many trash of all kinds is still in it. What was taken was not when surface!


THE TIME FOR DECOMPOSITION OF THESE WASTES


Polystyrene containers takeout: 1000 years to break down!


Butts: 1 to 5 years old Did you know that a single butt can pollute up to 500 liters of water? It alone contains a hundred harmful or even carcinogenic substances, which contaminate both water, air and soil.


Lighter: 100 years old! Lighter is a real ecological problem since it is not recyclable because it has to meet multiple safety criteria


Plastic bottles and bags:
Just as problematic as plastic bag, plastic bottle, it takes between 100 and 1000 years to break down into disintegrating, spending most of these long years drifting into our oceans, scattering plastic particles that will contaminate marine life and alter ecosystems


Aliminium can and candy / chocolate bags: 10 to 100 years of decomposing.


Glass: Finally, glass is the longest to break down, requiring an average of 4000 years!


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My motto,if it didn't grow there, pick it up and dispose of properly.

On each walk on the driveway to the road I can find something to clean up the land. EVERY TIME! So I bend to retrieve it and take it home. I care, sadly many simply don't care.
 
The magnitude of all this trash is beyond disheartening to see. Makes me sick. I learned from a very young age from my mother that if you see trash, pick it up and dispose of it properly, even if it was not my own. How people can be so careless about St. Barths and its fragile environment, and the rest of the world for that matter, is out of my realm of comprehension and truly angers me.
 
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