Litter: Unwelcome in a World Heritage Site

In November 2012 St Lucia News published an article on litter in St Lucia, a problem which should have no place in a World Heritage Site. The article included photographs of litter-strewn beach car parks & overturned bins at Cape Vidal and questioned the enforcement of 'no drinking in public', an age-old town by-law. The article can be viewed here. No comments or feedback were received from the park authority, yet, according to reports from some members of the St Lucia community, the litter issue has once again reared it's ugly head.

Archive photo: upturned bins at Cape Vidal Nov 2012

Each member of the St Lucia Community pays towards the employment of Town Security whose job it is to patrol every part of the town, from McKenzie Street to the beaches, ensuring not only the safety of our community & visitors but also the cleanliness of our town.
By ensuring that all St Lucia residents and visitors discard their litter in one of the many bins provided, the safety of the town's wildlife, from the perspective of ingesting plastic bags or stepping on broken glass,  is also maintained. In some instances rubbish is cleaned up the following day, however, on multiple occasions the car park at Jabula Beach has remained litter-strewn all weekend following a Friday night party. Wildlife, including hippos, leopards, bushbuck and bush pig are regularly spotted on the road running parallel to the beaches and, realistically, it's probably only a matter of time until we experience a wildlife death or severe injury as a direct result of the current lackadaisical attitude towards the cleanliness of our town.

Due to its location, St Lucia's need to 'keep clean' should be a given. However, this appears not to be the case so the question is this: How do we bring St Lucia in line with other towns in South Africa? Apart from the simple and cost effective solutions suggested in the November 2012 article, the St Lucia Ratepayers Association (RPA) can, with the support of the St Lucia Community, implement a recycling scheme for the town. Some thought was given to this in 2011 when the RPA and Wetland Recycling investigated the implementation of recycling bins which were to be scattered around town. The idea was that each bin would have separate compartments for the different recyclable materials which would be collected and transported to the closest recycling plant. To date, nothing has come to fruition. A recycling scheme for St Lucia would alleviate the pressure on our constantly overflowing landfill site, another obvious potential hazard for wildlife both on land and in the estuary, it would prevent the need to burn the landfill site, as occasionally happens, and it would mean that the St Lucia Community respects its place within South Africa's first World Heritage Site. After all, that which is common practice in almost every city and town in the country should not be absent in a World Heritage Site.

Example of recycling bins

At the time of publication, St Lucia News awaits comment and updates from the Ratepayers Association and will keep readers updated on this topic.