STYROFOAM containers and plastic bottles accounted for the majority of items collected from along the Port Royal coastline during the recent clean-up hosted by Scotiabank Jamaica.

Some 6,376 Styrofoam pieces and 5,778 plastic bottles were collected by the team of 200 volunteers who turned out for the March 5 clean-up.

The statistics were revealed by Monique Todd, Scotia’s vice-president of marketing, public and corporate affairs, at last Tuesday’s official launch of the $10.6-million Scotia Goes Green campaign, held at the Jamaica Pegasus Hotel in Kingston.

More than 2,000 plastic bottles, 1,399 clothing items and footwear, and 835 bottle caps were also collected.

The types of waste collected points the finger at shoreline and recreational activities as the primary sources of waste along the island’s coast and certainly in the Port Royal area.

“When we look at the vast majority of the items collected on March 5, we see that they belong to the category of shoreline and recreational activities,” said Todd, quoting Tess Cieux, programme officer with the United Nations Environment Programme. “This means that those plastic bottles, cups, bags and Styrofoam food containers used on beaches or in parks, or dumped improperly find their way directly to the Caribbean sea, where they then break up into tiny non-biodegradable pieces, presenting a danger to marine mammals and their habitat.”

According to Todd, the garbage collected, as noted by Cieux, represent 91 per cent of the total items collected compared to 82.6 per cent in the 2009 International Coastal Cleanup across the Caribbean.

The findings, the UNEP representative said, were a call to action.

“This is a statistic which allows us to zero in on where we need to bring about the greatest amount of change — we need to find a solution to encourage recycling of plastic bags, bottles and caps, and making sure that industry finds an alternative to Styrofoam food containers,” said Cieux. “But in the meantime, proper receptacles on beaches, along streets and near all waterways ensure that these containers are properly disposed of and not thrown on the ground.”

The March 5 coastal clean-up was the first in a series of such efforts to be conducted by Scotiabank over the next several months, as part of its ongoing ‘green’ campaign.