THE garbage-ridden Old Harbour Bay fishing beach in St Catherine was yesterday given a major clean-up, in an effort spearheaded by members of the Social Development Commission and the Old Harbour Bay Community Development Association.

With the help of residents of the community and persons who live and work on the fishing beach, mounds of garbage, consisting mainly of fish scales and entrails from all manner of sea-life, empty plastic bottles and Styrofoam containers, were scooped up and placed into National Solid Waste Management Authority garbage bags.

Emmanuel Gordon, past president of the Old Harbour Bay Community Development Association, said the move to clean the beach was part of a plan to redevelop the area.

“We’ve been doing this for quite a while now, getting the beach cleaned up every now and then. As you know, cleaning up of the beach don’t take just one day, as you clean it today it start to get dirty again. It is an ongoing thing. We decide now that what we are going to do is to continue to get this beach cleaned up, not only cleaning it up but to have a general development, improvement, beautification, etcetera.

“With the [Cricket] World Cup coming we don’t want the [tourists] to come and find a dirty place so we want to clean it up as much as possible. We’re going to do general painting of the sheds and all that so the place can look nice, not only for the World Cup, but as an ongoing thing,” said Gordon.

He added: “This fishing beach is the largest in Jamaica and the fish are nice, and we don’t want when people come and they see the beach dirty, they know that we can’t manage the beach, we don’t want them to condemn the place so we have to keep it clean.”

Sandra Goldbourne, regional manager for Region Five of the Social Development Commission, told the Observer that several agencies had committed themselves to the redevelopment of the fishing village.

“A number of them have come on board, the parish council is very integral as a partner, because the beach management falls under the purview of the parish council. We have the Jamaica Public Service, who we have approached for some assistance in the provision of drums. Right now the NSWMA is out of skips and they are out of drums. and they will also be providing some water tanks,” she said.

Also providing assistance will be Caribbean Cable Company Limited, the Old Harbour branch of the Bank of Nova Scotia as well as the Old Harbour Bay police.

However, despite the efforts, some of the beach users were not impressed. One man who gave his name as Cliff told the Observer that the clean-up efforts would soon be frustrated by the ‘people on the beach’.

“To how me see the vibes a go the people dem just directly destroy the thing. People more time carry the drum them [for garbage] and the people carry weh the drum dem and then nuh have nowhere to put di garbage,” he said.

To remedy the situation, the man suggested the posting of a police on the beach daily.

Another beach user, Howard ‘Blacka’ Hines, meanwhile, suggested that there be more government involvement in operation of the fishing beach.