(FYI) For your information
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Waste coming from the mortuary, maternity wards, operating theatre, and general wards, is not being incinerated. This waste ranges from, gloves, bandages, afterbirth waste, human waste from the wards, human waste from autopsies, empty plastic chemical drums used at the hospital. All of this is dumped at the back of the mortuary (next to the old cemetery). |
| Beach cleanup 2006 |
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Every year Trinidad & Tobago partners with the ICC (International Coastal Community) to highlight the effects of marine and land based debris cluttering our coastlines, disfiguring our beaches and making swimming in seawater a dangerous activity. On Sept 30th, 2006, the Tobago NGO community, Dept. of the Environment(DNRE) and volunteers will clean up Courland Bay and Belle Garden Bay.
No Bay or even our acclaimed Forest Reserve can claim to be pristine, or free of solid waste contamination. Recent patrols and surveys have shown that land based solid waste dumping includes household debris, construction material, derelict vehicles and other refuse, is occurring in the Forest Reserve, in the north-eastern part of the island from Batteaux Bay to the southeastern end at Lambeau Bay. Dumping is also prevalent from Charlotteville in the northwest to Pigeon Point and Kilgwyn Bay in the south. Solid waste continues to contaminate our waterways, washing into the sea with every heavy rain. Some of it lodges on the reefs, some of it is taken down the coast with the currents to be deposited on beaches around the island. Marine pollution is said to be simply “ an invasion of the marine environment by something that doesn’t belong there”. Marine debris is generated not only from boats and ships, in fact almost 80% of debris found on our beaches comes from land based activities. This form of pollution harms not only the environment but is a danger to human health. Oils and chemicals from boat engines in the coastal waters, kills birds, marine plants and fish. Partially treated and untreated sewage discharges from our households, businesses and tourism plant, spreads diseases and contaminates the fish stock. It smothers the sea floor with sediment, altering the nature and composition of the seabeds, killing off corals with its organic content and high concentrations of metals. Turtles and cetaceans (porpoises) mistaking plastic bags for jellyfish, eat them with fatal results. Plastic fills their stomachs and they die from starvation. Seabirds, fish and other marine mammals get entangled in discarded fishing lines, nets, and six-pack rings, and either suffocate or have to live with limited mobility due to damaged limbs. Marine debris fouls propellers, causing engines to overheat, resulting in loss of time and money to fishermen. Debris covered beaches and waterways are unsightly and unhealthy, and brings economic losses to the Tourism sector which depends on these natural assets. There are solutions to arrest the current habits of dumping debris at any convenient location on the island. Businesses, hotels, and citizens, must employ a different system for disposal of solid waste. It has been suggested that a system of ticketing can be re-introduced at the Studley Park landfill. The truck driver transporting the waste receives payment for the job upon delivery to the landfill and the subsequent issuing of a receipt with which he collects proffers to collect payment. This has worked before and can work again. We, the citizens of this island have to take responsibility for the mess we create in our daily lives. Beach fetes and holiday trips to isolated and popular beaches on the island creates an enormous amount of garbage that requires only that you carry a garbage bag with you and leaving only your footprints in the sand. So will Coastal cleanup 2006 make us sit up and take notice?
Will the anti-littering laws be enforced with vigour? Or will this just be
another public relations stunt used in our Tourism thrust? |
Photo taken from Bacolet bay cleanup 2005. Over 200 garbage bags of household generated debris was collected then. 
