This Saturday the first St Maarten Brand Audit cleanup event will be organized for volunteers to attend at Mullet Bay beach in the afternoon, volunteers will be rewarded with free beer, snacks, drinks and can try out the amazing Hay! biodegradable straws! During the Brand Audit cleanup event, volunteers will organize the collected trash based on the brand and type of plastic, hereby the plastic producers can be determined for most of our trash and can be confronted. This event is not only unique due to that it is the first Brand Audit for the island but also the collaboration of Nature Foundation, SXM A.C.T.I.O.N, SXM Beer and Hay! Straw St Maarten is exceptional.
SXM Beer will be giving FREE BEER to those who participate in the cleanup and Hay! Straws will be providing paper cups, drinking water and snacks to volunteers. During the event Hay! Straws, natural straws made from wheat, can be tested, St Maarten’s distributor of Hay! Straw, Kyle Wathey, is excited to take part in cleaning the environment; “Hay! Straws is proud to partner with The Nature Foundation for St. Maarten’s first beach cleanup of the decade. Mother nature is our future and must be preserved for our following generations.” Also Cole Brown from the up and coming local brewery, SXM Beer, values the efforts of cleanups and sustainability; “We are happy to be involved. As we open, we have our eye on constant improvement and pushing our consumers to drink and dispose responsibly.”
“We will be conducting a brand audit based on the accumulated trash. The more hands we have, the cleaner the beach will be. This will then result in a greater amount of data that will be brought to large corporations to hold them accountable for their polluting packaging. As plastic continues to pollute our oceans on an hourly basis, large companies like Coca Cola and Nestle must use greener alternatives. The data collected is presented to these corporations through the #BreakFreeFromPlastic movement” explained Grace Hensen organizer of the event and intern at the Nature Foundation St Maarten.
Volunteers will have the opportunity to clean the beach and record brands of trash they collected. Simply fill 1 bag of trash and then separate it based on brand. Volunteers can do as many bags as they would like, no minimum. All bags, gloves, data sheets, diagrams to help categorize plastics will be provided. There will be several people able to help you manage the plastic organizational steps. No experience is needed, just a good attitude.
The Nature Foundation’s Reduce Reuse Intern, Grace Hansen, has been researching plastic brand audits for several months; “though plastic brand audits are constantly occurring worldwide, this has not been done in St. Maarten. With the new year already in motion, this is a great way to clean the environment and continue moving towards a plastic free world for the new decade.”
All volunteers are welcome to join and to assist to keep St. Maarten Beautiful on January 11th, 2020 at 3:30 PM at Mullet Bay Beach parking lot, no registration is needed. It is important to get involved in the community and cleanups as SXM Action mentioned, “the greatest threat to our planet is the belief that someone else will save it.”