ON Tuesday, while the country embarked on its national Labour Day activities, staff members of Carreras Limited launched their own labour project dubbed ‘Project Sweep’.

Under the initiative, volunteers from Carreras Limited along with their families and a few of the company’s 2022 SEEK scholars carried out extensive clean-up and tree-planting activities across four parishes.

According to Managing Director Franklin Murillo, this is the company’s first time executing such an islandwide Labour Day initiative that involved staff members from all depots located in Kingston, Montego Bay, Manchester and Portland.

Staff members from the company’s Ripon Road corporate office and Hagley Park depot joined forces to collect plastics and debris along the Palisadoes strip in an effort to improve the level of pollution and curtail the alleged rat and roach infestation that was reported just a month ago in a newspaper article.

Numerous garbage bags were filled by volunteers with plastic bottles, caps and lids, food packages and wrappers, metal, wood and cloth that were extracted from the coastline and from the crevices of rocks.

While the Kingston offices undertook their Palisadoes clean-up exercise, staff members from the Montego Bay, Portland and Manchester depots focused their attention on this year’s national Labour Day theme which called on Jamaicans to “Plant a tree…for life”.

The team in Montego Bay planted fruit and ornamental trees at the St James Infirmary in main street Montego Bay. Several shade trees were planted by the Portland team at the Fellowship Community and the Manchester team planted their seedlings at the Brooks Park Sports and Recreational Complex in the parish. Approximately 20 seedlings received by the Forestry Department were planted by the teams.

According to Murillo who joined the Kingston team in their Palisadoes clean-up exercise, he is very pleased with the turnout of the staff, their families, and the scholars for making Project Sweep a huge success.

“I am particularly very proud that in addition to working with the Government and the rest of Jamaica to promote climate change mitigation and food security by planting trees, we were also able to provide a much-needed facelift and decontamination to the Palisadoes strip that is the only gateway from the Norman Manley International Airport to the historic city of Port Royal and the capital city of Kingston,” he adds.

While he expressed great satisfaction with the work and turnout of the team on Labour Day, he says the company’s Labour Day project is not yet fully complete as there are plans to donate large garbage bins along the Palisadoes strip to encourage proper garbage disposal by citizens.

In the interim, he is imploring persons visiting the Palisadoes strip for recreational purposes such as sightseeing and exercising to discontinue littering the coastline with food wrappers and other non-biodegradable pollutants. He also hopes that tree-planting will become a regular part of our everyday lives.

“My ultimate dream for Jamaica and Jamaicans is that the actions of our company on Labour Day will motivate more citizens to join us in playing our part in healing our land and creating ‘A Better Tomorrow” for our island home.