Members of an Anguillian family, who returned to the island briefly for Anguilla Day, spent their leisure time removing quantities of seaweed from Sandy Hill Beach, saying they wanted to preserve the beauty of the island’s beaches. The family members reside in England, the United States, Canada, and Sandy Hill, Anguilla.
The beach-cleaning initiative was led by Crystal Richardson who works as a Sports Therapist with Dagenham Rugby Academy in London and is originally from Sandy Hill, Anguilla. She graduated from Kent University last year with a Bachelor of Science (Hons) Degree in Sports Therapy. She is the daughter of Mr. Homer Richardson, a former Magistrate in Anguilla, and Mrs. Candon Richardson formerly of Sandy Hill.
Crystal explained how her beach-cleaning idea came about. “Last year I came home for carnival and on August Monday I realised that a lot of people are leaving trash all over the beaches, and then we have the seaweed,” she stated. “Our beaches are important when it comes to tourism, and so I decided to get members of my family, and a couple of friends together, to clean all of them starting with my beach at Sandy Hill and eventually to work our way around the island.”
She continued: “We must save our land and our beaches. We want people to come here. We want to enjoy our beaches and for others to do so as well. We should not wait for foreigners to clean our beaches. We should clean them ourselves as locals.”
Crystal and her party collected a number of bags of seaweed and other solid waste hoping that a garbage truck would turn up to provide transportation to the Corito dumpsite. However, when it did not show up, she was resolved “to take the garbage to the landfill ourselves”.
Her father, who now practises law in New York and the US Virgin Islands, commented that while his daughter’s idea was a good one, cleaning the beaches was a difficult task for her, members of family and friends. He thought that inmates of Her Majesty’s Prison could be assigned that task as a community service.
“I think we have a bunch of youngsters around committing offences against the law,” he said. “You should have a community service programme whereby they are required to clean-up the beaches. I think that would help the island tremendously.”
