How did Pure Grenada become so impure?
LITTER appears to be impossible to escape!
Does litter matter? Yes. It gets noticed. Our members have heard tourists commenting on the amount of litter on the island. Litter not only affects tourism: locals can be heard repeatedly on various media platforms complaining about litter and illegal dumping. It befouls our beaches, our rivers, our roadsides. It’s everywhere. It disgusts, and it’s a health hazard for all. More so than many realise.
The Abatement of Litter Act was gazetted in August 2015, but, lacking structures, it is yet to be implemented. We need it!
The Grenada Green Group (G3) was founded by two embarrassed tour guides, who, with a new and determined team, aim to get rid of this scourge.
G3 has set itself several tasks. Covid has led to delays, but the group is undaunted.
We work with schools. Not just making presentations to raise awareness, but securing monitored pledges of personal commitment, and setting creative tasks, e.g. production of posters, slogans, songs, role plays on an anti-litter theme.
In collaboration with SGU Public Health Department and the Environmental Health Ministry, a school litter curriculum is being developed. The commitment has been impressive.
We work with communities. Public education is a must. We recognise and publicise sustained cleanliness, and we hold ‘community campaigns’. We work with businesses, inviting them to sponsor specific items: prizes for schoolchildren’s efforts; signs and stickers.
We see sporadic clean-ups as futile if done in isolation. Litterers drop with impunity, knowing that someone will pick up after them, spreading the fake news that people are paid to pick up. Meanwhile, ‘clean-up fatigue’ is evident. G3 aims to tackle the disease, not the symptoms.
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