Garbage to sender

TWO drivers and a manufacturing company were among the latest recipients in the Return To Sender anti-littering project.

A team of "garbage sleuths" hunts periodically for garbage illegally dumped and where its origins can be traced, the garbage is returned to the owner with a covering letter explaining where it was found and offering to provide advice on how to properly dispose of it.

"What is strange is that no one has called us. No one has responded to us about these packages," said Andy Coward of Treading Lightly.

One bag of garbage found in Jack-In-The-Box Gully was traced to a St. Thomas manufacturing company and duly returned to it. From the same parish, a driver had a Pine Hill Dairy black currant Buddy pack returned to him. One of the sleuthing teams observed that container being thrown through the window of the car. Another driver had a candy wrapper returned also after it was thrown through his car window by a schoolgirl. This car was driving along the Ermy Bourne Highway in St Joseph when it stopped to give a lift to some schoolgirls. A few hundred yards later, one of the girls threw the candy wrapper through the window. The largest and heaviest items were returned to their owners in St Michael. One was a vehicle tyre and  the other, an old metal rim of a vehicle wheel. Both were found in a cart road in St. Thomas, a stone¹s throw away from the Mangrove Pond Landfill where they were supposed to have been dumped.

Coward said he hoped these people, instead of being offended, would put measures in place to crack down on illegal dumping. He said the chief executive of the St Thomas manufacturing company should scrutinise those whom he pays to dispose of his company's garbage to ensure their truckloads are better secured in the future. And as for the driver at the East Coast to whom a candy wrapper was returned, Coward says he should enforce a no-littering rule for all passengers in his car in future.

Model of a centre

A MODEL layout of Envirotech's new recycling centre under construction in the Belle Plantation Yard. Chief executive of Envirotech, Mel Harding, said it was designed to be more user-friendly, to encourage people to get involved in recycling, and to provide a marketplace on site where people may purchase recycled products. A workshop will be available to tours so people may see how their garbage is being recycled. The centre should be operational in another three months.

Medicinal herbs

THE Barbadian environment has served up numerous potions over the years. Among them are aphrodisiacs from the plants which we pass each day ­ or so Barbadian men of old claim. Raw peanuts, linseed, and sea moss are among the more well-known, closely followed by sea-egg, cow heel, and molasses; but there were other sources which empowered Bajan men such as the weeds named Hug-Me-Close and Gully Root.

According to the A-Z of Barbadian Heritage the woody vine Chawstick provided a man with not only a toothbrush but also an aphrodisiac and a remedy for gonorrhoea. Young men also believed that by rubbing Tim-Tom bush on their bodies young women would be attracted to them. When all else failed, Fingle-Me-Go, a prickly fine-leaved shrub,part of the citrus family, was hunted. Perhaps this worked because Fingle-Me-Go was so hunted, that today it totters on the brink of extinction and is a very difficult plant now to
locate in Barbados.

Considering that Barbados is one of the most densely populated countries in the world, one wonders whether these plants and weeds actually worked or whether it was all just plain natural.
Source: A-Z of Barbadian Heritage.

Fine kettle of fish indeed!

STRANGE fish are appearing in the gradually warming waters off the French coast, puzzling experts who say they are unsure if global warming, new feeding patterns, or pollution are to blame. Flying gurnards, moonfish, triggerfish, and tropical turtles are among the creatures that have given up traditional homes as far away as Africa for the  Atlantic coast.  Stephane Auffret, director at the Croisic Oceanarium, on France¹s western shoreline, said an increase in plankton -- possibly caused by greater marine pollution ­ fed sea creatures such as jelly fish, who in turn became meals for more exotic creatures. (Reuter)