Last Sunday the St Maarten Nature Foundation, Environmental Protection in the Caribbean (EPIC) and the ‘A Bit at a Time’ initiative of Mason Chadwick organized a another successful cleanup event. Approximately 70 volunteers came out in order to clean the Simpson Bay Lagoon coastline. This cleanup saw the largest amount of trash ever collected for an event organized by the Foundations with eight fully loaded large trucks leaving with trash and hurricane debris. The island ‘Little Key’ and the lagoon area across from the airport entrance up to Sixt Car Rental are now completely clean of hurricane debris and garbage. The Foundations are urging the community to keep it that way.
A large thanks goes to the VROMI Ministry and Toontje (Claudius) Buncamper and team for the removal of all the trash and the safe traffic coordination. A special thanks goes to the St. Maarten Coast Guard team who due to their tireless effort left the entire coastline clean. Island Water World donated heavy duty gloves, reusable bags and t-shirts.
The organizations are asking the public to stay tuned for the following cleanup event, which will be the important wetland area Mullet Pond on the 24th of February. The community is also urged to responsibly dispose their garbage, trash laying around will end up in our marine and lagoon ecosystem impacting this fragile system and our own health.
Picture : The VROMI Ministry workers are loading the trash and hurricane debris on large trucks.