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Middle Island Neighborhood Watch continues to trash the bad habit of littering

For the past 10 years, the Middle Island Neighborhood Watch (MINW) has been tackling Ambergris Caye's garbage by cleaning their neighborhood's beaches and roads. With special focus on the Journey's End area and north of Mata Grande Grocery Store, MINW's members are not only cleaning surrounding areas, but also raising awareness so that other communities are motivated to keep their environment clean.

Since the establishment of MINW, one of their main missions is to help beautify Ambergris Caye. MINW President Jan Van Noord, and MINW Secretary Diane Campbell, who currently spearheads the MINW trash project, have been actively working as a team. Now, with MINW advocating these cleanup efforts, the project has expanded, with many volunteers showing up to work hard.

During a recent outreach program, MINW received various cash donations, which was used to carry out a deep cleaning of roadsides and beaches. On two different occasions, one person filled nine large bags with trash. Just days after, another team was able to fill 41 contractor (55-gallon) trash bags, and local businesspeople volunteered their trucks and personnel to haul the debris away. In addition, there are some individuals who pledged to clean 500 feet of beach and 800 feet of road, some have adopted particular stretches of beach where they like to walk, and others have begun to pick up small grocery bags of trash a day. MINW cleanup efforts have even inspired the youth, as a total of six 55-gallon bags of trash was recently collected by children at Portofino Resort.

Click here to read the rest of the article in the San Pedro Sun

BRAVO!!

Another neighbor sponsored a road clean going north yesterday. Two men, 41 bags of trash!!!
Correction to the article ..... MINW area of focus runs from Journey's End several miles north to X'tan Ha and beyond (this is way past the grocery store). Many hands. Much good work. Thank you. Let's keep it up.

I will follow up a couple of private emails here to help spur some donations. Should a donation ( check) be made payable to "middle Island Neighborhood Watch"?.. Next question; How much was the cost for two men to pick up the 41 bags of trash including the cost of the bags?

I'm IN; hopefully this question will spur some other readers.

The Garbage guy that picks up on docks by boat is 620 6090. He walks the walk and talks the talk they call him the Joker.

Cost is about $15 Bz ($7.50 US) per average BIG bag (55+ gallons, contractor quality bag so it doesn't tear open) filled with average sized pieces of debris .... this covers labour, bag and transportation to the dump.

Thanks Diane.. I really appreciate the effort that you, Janice Feldman, Jan at Portofino and the others have done for all of us.. As I told you privately, it always starts with "this is terrible, somebody should do something about this"... YOU "GUYS" DID. As you know; I am off the island but am arranging for a check for Janice to pick up.

For others who appreciate this as much as I do, please contact Diane for helping, if you are on the island or contact Diane to contribute for 5,10, 20 or 50 bags. Checks should be made payable to Diane Campbell of Janice Feldman.

Again; MUCHO THANKO

Thanks Shyboy!

Hopefully, my contribution was JUST a little "nudge" to the rest of you who truly love this island...Looking forward to watching this thread "sprout"..

Next thing is to keep it clean out there. I drive a certain route to work every day. It's a mile of road. We've had it deep cleaned already so every day I go to work I take a small grocery bag and pick up any new trash as I drive. It's not much trouble and I love the results. Later in the day I walk my dog. I take a bag with me and pick up stuff from the beach - occasionally I find some really interesting things ....... a beautiful wooden boat rudder, part of a hull of a very old boat with a french name ..... these items clean up nicely and make great objects d'art. The bag-a-day is also a great motivator to get some exercise - which most of us need.
Along with the big cleans, we need people who will do something like this daily or weekly. It only takes a few minutes if it is done regularly. Most of the people supporting the big clean have landscape workers - after the big clean is done ( if you're not here to help or would prefer to supervise) all you need to do is send them out for 20 minutes at the end off each day and the place will be spic and span!!