Direct enforcement needed to prevent littering as Gibraltar ‘Cleans up the World’

The local community banded together for another year as part of the Environmental Safety Groups ‘Clean up the World’ campaign.

Over 500 volunteers could be seen over the weekend clearing areas of Gibraltar from litter.

The 26 teams targeted places from Europa point, Caleta, Little Bay, Waterport and even at sea.

The ESG told the Chronicle it believes that most people do care about the environment and homeland and that it is a minority who freely soils and litters.

“We think that greater and more direct enforcement would help prevent persistent and careless litterers and will press for this post campaign once more,” ESG’s Janet Howitt said.

“Our volunteers see issues regarding littering and they want to do something about these as well as see them addressed.”

“They support the Clean up which does both by airing these issues publicly and follows up with the authorities during the rest of the year.”

“We believe areas are getting clearer and despite, at times, challenging periods, the cleaning company copes with the workload.”

“Still feel people should be far more conscious of their rubbish and do more.”

“During our clean ups we address obvious and awkward areas, out of the way forgotten areas, and because of the age groups, we include easy, open areas, which are safe for them to be in.”

She added the ESG reminds people to flag up issues and problem areas during the rest of the year so the authorities can tackle them.

The ESG also believe that even if they get to the stage where littering no longer occurs, that the ethos of the Clean up the World, ‘Clean Up, Green Up and Fix up the environment’, will provide teams of enthusiastic volunteers with a scope of projects to keep people busy going forward for some time to come.

Last Saturday several truckloads of rubbish were collect and some teams were collecting waste from 9am to 5pm.

“Seven Sisters was a special case where the protected beach and coastline has seen long term contamination of polystyrene,” Ms Howitt said.

“The scale was such that a moderate size group could not remove this effectively.”

“Having the Gibraltar Regiment in numbers (50) allowed this material to be removed in large quantities with a few trips required to the waste facilities to dispose of as well as other rubbish collected.”