Mounds of plas­tic waste, bot­tles, tyres and var­i­ous types of garbage were col­lect­ed in the vicin­i­ty of the Ca­roni Swamp vis­i­tor cen­tre on Sat­ur­day morn­ing when the En­vi­ron­men­tal Man­age­ment Au­thor­i­ty (EMA) and more than 250 vol­un­teers par­tic­i­pat­ed in In­ter­na­tion­al Coastal Clean-Up Day.

Hay­den Ro­mano, man­ag­ing di­rec­tor of the EMA said at­ti­tudes to­wards the en­vi­ron­ment must change. He said a good point to start was ed­u­cat­ing young learn­ers about the im­pact garbage has on the en­vi­ron­ment. “We as cit­i­zens in­dis­crim­i­nate­ly dis­pose of waste. As we walk along the road to the vis­i­tor cen­tre there are nu­mer­ous piles of sty­ro­foam, tyres and items that do not be­long in this en­vi­ron­ment.”

Ro­mano said there was al­ways the need for pub­lic ed­u­ca­tion on the im­pact garbage has on the en­vi­ron­ment and the need for re­cy­cling. He said large amounts of waste not on­ly dam­age the en­vi­ron­ment and wildlife but it al­so con­tributes to flood­ing. Ro­mano said the EMA was tak­ing a proac­tive ap­proach and steer­ing clear of us­ing sty­ro­foam con­tain­ers at its events.

The EMA man­ag­ing di­rec­tor said he was hope­ful that leg­is­la­tion would deal with the is­sue of the use of sty­ro­foam. Ro­mano said there are al­ter­na­tives to sty­ro­foam food pack­ag­ing that are bio-degrad­able and cost-ef­fec­tive.