The GraceKennedy Foundation (GKF) has announced that through its collaboration with The Ocean Cleanup, and Clean Harbours Jamaica (CHJ) Limited, approximately US $4 million has been pumped into a pilot project to prevent waste from entering the Kingston Harbour over the past two years.

In an interview with Observer Online, Caroline Mahfood, CEO of GKF shared that so far, the project has created barriers at seven of the 11 gullies surrounding the Kingston Harbour and is now hoping to take on the remaining four.

“We’ve tackled seven of the 11 most polluting gullies in the whole area. The four others we want to focus on include those in Hunt’s Bay, which includes ‘the beast’, Sandy Gully which is one of the major polluters of the whole Harbour,” she said. “I expect this year we will target at least two of those.”

Outlining that the cost of that initiative is yet to be determined, Mahfood revealed that Coca-Cola will be in charge of the project.

“We’re not sure of the cost of the Hunt’s Bay intervention. What we can say is that Coca-Cola is the funder through the Ocean Cleanup for that initiative. An organisation called Team Seas – which is Mr Beast, who is one of the biggest YouTubers in the world, that’s one of his non-profits. They are funding the Ocean Cleanup so every pound of waste that we collect and verify, they get money toward the project directly,” she said.

Announcing a new partnership with the Kingston and St Andrew Municipal Corporation (KSAMC), Mahfood said she is happy to have the support of the newly-minted Mayor as the partnership is a necessary one.

“As you know, the KSAMC is responsible for most of the gullies except Sandy Gully, I believe. And there are times when we need their intervention with regards to excavating, permits, things like that and from the get-go they have been very, very supportive of making sure they guide us on what the correct interventions should be. It has just been an excellent partnership so far,” she said. “Mayor Andrew Swaby has also committed to giving us all the support he can. I know that keeping the city clean is very high on his agenda.”

For his part, Mayor Swaby said the cleanup project is in keeping with his municipality’s mandate of keeping the city clean. He also used the opportunity to urge the citizens of Kingston and St Andrew to carry out their civic duty in helping to keep the city clean.

“I want to say to the residents of Kingston and St Andrew that we ought to do better. We have to manage and dispose of our garbage in a way that is environmentally friendly. While we call upon the National Solid Waste Management team to do more of taking up our debris, we have a civic duty to make sure that all our plastic bottles and waste are disposed of the correct way, not throwing them in gullies,” he said.