The Jamaica Environment Trust, (JET) with the support of 500 volunteers, cleared debris from a five-mile stretch along the coastal Palisadoes Strip Saturday, hauling thousands of plastic bottles from the seaside.

The agency, which has been cleaning the strip for 10 years, said plastic continued to be the most populous refuse bagged – 6,612 plastic bottles and 1,632 caps and lids were collected.

By using community volunteers, the environmentalists islandwide who clean the coastlines to mark International Coastal Clean Up Day, hope that their confrontation with solid waste will translate into behaviour change and better management of personal and household garbage.

“When volunteers are involved in beach clean ups, they begin to realise where discarded waste ends up,” says Diana McCauley, JET chief executive officer. “We hope this builds more responsible attitudes towards garbage disposal, especially in young people.”

The clean-ups Saturday were originally planned for September 18, but were postponed due to Hurricane Ivan.

The volunteers who came out on the weekend included international reggae artistes Sean Paul who was also part of last year’s clean up crew, Rik Rok and Prince Midas.

International Coastal Clean Up Day was started 17 years ago by the Ocean Conservancy.

The 2003 clean up in Jamaica had 1,602 volunteers who cleaned 18 miles of coastline and collected 121,843 pieces of debris, which weighed in at 20,301 pounds.

Internationally, there were more than 450,000 volunteers from 91 countries who cleaned over 16,000 miles of coastline, collected 6.5 million pieces of garbage that weighed over 7.5 million pounds.

Plastic beverage bottles, caps, lids, plates and utensils accounted for nearly 50 per cent of all the debris collected.