From 8:00 am this Saturday, Zahir Solano Pérez8 years, began, with a black bag in hand, to collect waste at the Park of the Indian Park, in County, in its first time participating in the international cleaning of coast, an edition that coincided with the eighth anniversary of the Hurricane Maria.
“I picked up a towel, glass vessels, plastic, many pimpitas … (this cleaning) is very important. Also, when you are barefoot, you can spend something or anything dangerous and also hurts marine animals”said the child, accompanied by his mother, Neileesch Pérez Rosario.
International Coast Cleaning 2025 was attended by tens of thousands of volunteers who came out early to impact 164 coast Scuba Dogs Society (SDS).
The program coordinator of the entity, Gabriel Pecuniashared that, only until noon, they had counted 3 million articles at the island level and had registered more than 6,447 scorers, who document in some leaves of the organization the type of materials they remove.
At 6:00 pm, with 66 (40%) of the 164 reported coasts, the figures were going for 51,829 pounds of garbage, collected in 1,571 bags, by 3,420 volunteers.
Pérez Rosario commented that he wanted his son to have that experience and that “I love our natural heritage that were inherited for us.”
This was the experience of thousands of families through Puerto Rico in the event, which this year commemorates the 40th anniversary of the global initiative timped by Ocean Conservancyas well as 24 years of uninterrupted leadership by SDS at the local level.
“We made a caravan from (the beach) empty talega, in Loíza, to Cataño, And we saw at all points between 70 to 100 people, many students doing their green hours, and we saw a lot of movement of people collecting garbagesingle -use plastic, cigarette butts and many bags, ”he said, for his part, María Ocasio TorresExecutive Director of SDS, from the Pyramid of Cataño.
According to him 2024 SDS reportlast year’s event was held on September 21 in 188 natural spaces in Puerto Rico, where more than 9,000 volunteers removed more than 80,000 pounds of garbage. Since SDS leads events, they have managed to remove more than 3 million pounds of garbage.
For 23 years, the shepherd Carmen Rodríguez He has been captain of the Cataño coast. The resident shared that this year had 50 volunteers from 7:30 am “they participate from the area of the fishing village to the boat area, around a coastal mile,” he said.
Peculiarly, this year a piece of wooden boat and zinc pipes were found in Cataño, “as a type of Yola without walls”, for which they had to use machine to take it out. “They were taken to beach neveritas. We usually take a lot of plastic. We found a little less (of garbage) than previous years, but we have collected from everything”Rodríguez said, who recalled that, in 2017, they carried out the cleaning two days before the pass of Mary.
Earlier, in the park of the Indian, Carlos Contreraspresident and principal executive of Conwaste – One of the sponsors of the event – mentioned that “we always support trucks and this year we have decided to bring our work team.” “There is a great representation of our large recycling plant in Carolina. It is good to make this effort,” he said.
For his part, the SDS captain in this beach crowded by many tourists and Sanjuaneros residents, Steven Oquendohe stressed that he saw “that fusion between young people and older adults and who can work as a team.” He said that 75 people attended. “That shows that youth is not lost,” said the leader, who has already been captain three times.
“Throughout these 24 years leading SDS, we have seen a decrease in the size and weight of the garbage. Yes, we are seeing items that are less heavy, but what we want to see is less dirty beaches and that we collect less and less, and we are seeing that”, The director of the entity highlighted.
Due to rain, cleaning in certain bodies of water was modified for other dates. The works for the Mameyes/Palmer River and the Mameyes River/Bridge Bridge were rescheduled, both in Rio Grande, for September 27; the Coamo River, for October 11; and the Los Viveros river, in Maricao, for October 27.