Groups from 46 organisations participated in Clean Up Barbados on Saturday, 18 March, 2023, bringing 1,212 volunteers to #PickUpDeTing. This annual, island-wide event is volunteer-driven and keeps Barbados beautiful while highlighting the harmful impacts that littering and illegal dumping have on Barbados’ ecosystems and residents’ wellbeing.

Participants cleaned 46,608 pounds of rubbish from Barbados’ beautiful landscapes, supported by donations of bags, gloves, tools, skips and heavy equipment from many organisations and individuals all over Barbados. The location with the biggest collection was Blackman’s gully, where an earlier clean-up was just done for Clean Up Barbados in 2020. This year, volunteers cleaned 5 illegal dump sites: Blackman’s Gully, Buck’s Gully, Lemon Arbor, Friendship Terrace, and Henry’s Lane. Additionally, 5 other inland locations, 15 beaches, and one underwater site were cleaned. Please honour our heroes who keep Barbados clean.

We invite you to alert us to illegal dump sites by emailing a map pin and images of the site to moc.liamg@ngiapmacsodabrabpunaelc. We also welcome anyone who wishes to form their own clean-ups throughout the year and will do what we can to provide support. Group leaders are what makes Clean Up Barbados a success. In 2023, 71% of all Group Leaders participated in Clean Up Barbados for the first time. The number of people who came out to Clean Up Barbados indicates a social movement towards zero tolerance for illegal dumping and littering.

You can support Clean Up Barbados in many ways:

• Sponsorship donations provide funds for marketing of the event and its message to the public through multiple channels, and for any resources beyond those supplied through donations which are necessary to achieve the cleanup,
• Donations in kind of materials and loan of tools and equipment provide essential resources used by volunteers in the cleanup effort,
• Donations of prizes that are awarded to individuals and teams in several categories based on the actual cleanup results achieved,
• Organize your own team and register as a school, church, company, or community group to join the clean up, and (optionally) purchase event t-shirts for your team,
• Follow Clean Up Barbados on Facebook and Instagram and be one of the first to
  know when registrations open for our next Clean Up Barbados event.
• Register as an individual to be assigned to and participate with a team of your choice.

Clean Up Barbados is a volunteer opportunity which can provide great satisfaction to yourself and your team. Volunteering is known to be a great way to connect with others and improve social ties, positively engage with others and be active within the community, gain experience with new challenges, raise awareness of social and environmental issues, interact with different cultures, contribute to social change, as well as to develop professional networks. We are all ready to get out and do something positive!

Clean Up Barbados operates primarily through the efforts of Group Leaders, who each pull together a group of volunteers from their church, community, company, industry, or social group. Functions that Group Leaders perform include, all through coordination with the Project Team: 1) distribution of information and instructions, gloves, bags and tools, to all members in their group, 2) provision of adequate resources appropriate to their designated clean up location, 3) and on the day of the event, to arrange for removal of collected materials. 

During the cleanup, thousands of pounds of litter are removed from nature by people like you. This includes tyres, car parts, mattresses, fridges, TVs and large appliances, scrap wood and metal, and of course plastic and other litter. Needless to say, it’s bittersweet. On one hand we’re amazed by the efforts of hundreds of people who want to save Barbados, but on the other hand, it’s gut-wrenching to see the deep impact of illegal dumping. Some of the hardest hit areas of Barbados are our gullies which are a source of drinking water, habitat for wildlife, and need to be preserved for our nation’s physical and mental wellbeing.