Western Bureau: Recycle for Life, in collaboration with the Manchester Environmental Agency (MEA), will undertake a clean-up programme in the fishing community of Alligator Pond, St Elizabeth today.

Members of that community are encouraged to join in the clean-up activity, which is geared at restoring the area’s beauty, and safeguarding the health of its inhabitants.

“Alligator Pond is a typical Jamaican indigenous fishing village, which maintained a number of its traditional cultural heritage. Its natural beauty is attributed to its biodiversity, endemic species and massive sand dunes. This rural community is developing into a fine Jamaican sub-town but it’s losing its once pristine beauty as it is littered with garbage dumped by unknown persons or washed up from the beach,” Recycle for Life explained in a statement.

“Recycle for life and the Manchester Environmental Protection Agency are bringing to national attention the importance of litter reduction and solid waste management in safeguarding communities like Alligator Pond.”

The clean-up programme forms part of Recycle for Life’s Christmas anti-litter campaign and will target the Alligator Pond community centre, the beach immediately adjoining the Alligator Pond fishing village and the Sand Dunes area.

In addition to recycle for Life and the MEA, the Alligator Pond Consultative Committee, the Alligator Pond All-Age School, the sustainable Community Fund, Southern Parks and Markets and the Boys Scouts of Jamaica (Southern Region) will also be a part of the initiative.