LUCEA, Hanover — Project manager at the Rotary Club of Lucea Mervin Spence says it appears that residents of Lucea and its environs are becoming more conscious about the need for a clean environment.

“People are getting more educated about garbage and, speaking to the community, they are more passionate about keeping the community clean because they realise the health risk, especially with the Zika virus. A lot of them are talking about that they don’t want their baby to born with small heads, so I think that is getting through to the public,” Spence said.

He was speaking with the Jamaica Observer West on Saturday during the International Coastal Clean-up Day project at the Seaview Drive Beach in Lucea.

The day’s activities were a joint effort between the Grand Palladium hotel in Hanover, the Rotary Club and Rotaract Club of Lucea and community members.

The clean-up exercise started at the Bull’s Bay Public Beach with Rotaract members who later joined with members of the elder counterpart, Rotary, and workers from the Grand Palladium Hotel along with community members — removing over 2,000 plastic bottles from the beach.

But, despite the amount of garbage removed, the Rotary Club claimed that less garbage, including used condoms, were removed this year in comparison to 2015.

President of the Rotary Club of Lucea, Winfield Murray, said with the club’s motto, ‘Giving Service Above Thyself’, it was fitting for it to partner with the Grand Palladium Hotel over the past four years in International Coastal Clean-up projects.

For her part, the Grand Palladium’s Quality Control Manager Shalieann Brown said, apart from the hotel being a sponsor of the beach area in Lucea, management was fully aware of the importance of protecting the beach, noting that there is more than one sea turtle nesting site near the hotel.

Meanwhile, in the neighbouring parish of St James, about 200 volunteers turned up at the Closed Harbour Beach, popularly known as ‘Dump Up Beach’ to participate in the major, one-day beach clean-up exercise.

An estimated 1, 600 pounds of garbage was collected during the St James activities.

The project, which was sponsored by the Sandals Foundation in the Montego Bay region, in partnership with the Montego Bay Marine Park Trust, is part of a continued initiative aimed at raising awareness about environmental practices that negatively impact the island’s natural resources, and encourages citizens and other major stakeholders within the tourism industry to be mindful of issues relating to improper disposal of used materials.

Regional Public Relations Manager Khadine Daley, noted that “each year, the Sandals Foundation ambassadors from Sandals Montego Bay, Sandals Royal Caribbean and Sandals Carlyle are eager to venture out into the communities to engage in environmental projects such as these and to work alongside other groups and stakeholders”.

International Coastal Clean-up Day was started 31 years ago by Ocean Conservancy as an annual global day of action.