INTERNATIONAL Coastal Clean-up (ICC) Day, hosted by Jamaica’s national coordinator, the Jamaica Environment Trust (JET), will again be supported by the Tourism Enhancement Fund (TEF) and the Ocean Conservancy.

ICC Day 2023 will be held on September 16, 2023.

ICC Day was started to raise awareness about growing pollution on beaches around the world. It is held on the third Saturday of September each year, in over 100 countries, and spearheaded by the Ocean Conservancy, a non-profit agency in the United States. ICC Day is now one of the world’s largest annual preservation and protection events and volunteer efforts for our ocean, waves and beaches.

JET has been Jamaica’s national coordinator for ICC Day since 2008 and each year has attracted thousands of volunteers who register to do clean-ups right across Jamaica. In 2022, a total of 6,020 volunteers from 134 groups collected 79,507 pounds of garbage from 124 miles of coastline at 158 clean-ups across all 14 parishes.

Justin Saunders, JET programme director, said, “Registration is now open for groups wanting to host their own clean-up on ICC Day 2023. Groups must register with JET to be a site coordinator. Registration closes August 11, 2023. Volunteers can also register for JET’s flagship clean-up, but registration does not open until August 24, 2023 and then closes September 4, 2023.”

The theme for ICC Day 2023 is #SeatheChange and there will be strong focus on plastic pollution.

Dr Theresa Rodriguez-Moodie, CEO of JET, said, “Plastic pollution is a major problem worldwide but especially for island nations like Jamaica. Most of the plastic pollution in Jamaica is caused by single-use plastic such as food containers, plastic bottles, food cutlery, and food wrappers. They often end up on our beaches, smother our mangroves and coral reefs. But every bottle and straw, every piece of trash you clean up can lead to a cleaner, healthier ocean.”

While clean-ups are not the solution to the plastic problem, they do help, along with the plastic ban, public education campaigns such as Nuh Dutty Up Jamaica and garbage barriers along the mouths of major gullies.

Dr Rodriguez-Moodie went on to say, “At JET’s flagship clean-up in 2022, we noticed a significant reduction in the plastic on the beaches. We are of the view that this could be a result of the combined efforts of education and awareness, clean-ups, the ban on certain single-use plastic and barriers along major gullies in Kingston. But the efforts must be sustained because the use of single-use plastic is still growing.”

JET has indicated that interested persons can check their social media pages and website for further information.