One local company is proving that environmental care begins with community action.
On Sunday morning, Barbados Guide, a local search engine platform, coordinated a group of volunteers to clean up Browne’s Beach, one of the island’s most popular spots.
Co-founder Daniel Sobers said the initiative reflects the company’s commitment not only to promoting local businesses but also to protecting the environment.
Over the past two and a half years of operation, the company has organised four beach cleanups, each attracting volunteers of families and local organisations.
Although their previous initiatives usually attract around 20 people, he believes the turnout was smaller this time around due to the inclement weather.
Undeterred, the enthusiasm was evident among those who braved the rains to lend a hand.
“We do beach cleanups to contribute, to give back. We want to expand it and take it further to other beaches, but we find we keep coming back to Carlisle Bay and there is plenty of stuff to pick up.
“Predominantly, a lot of visitors to Barbados come and help do this. We get a few locals contributing on the beach sometimes, but we would love to get more locals coming out and assisting with the cleanup, or rather learning to keep their beaches clean from the beginning,” Sobers said.
“You don’t have to throw the garbage when you are at the beach on the sand. You can take a little bag, you can put it in your pockets and stick it in your car or you can look for a bin that is nearby.”
Sobers revealed that Barbados Guide had plans to take its environmental efforts even further.
“We have bins here that have these scanning codes on them and we can deploy these across Barbados. When people go to use it and it’s full and it’s scanned we get alerted and then we can identify all of the areas that need clearing and we can send out sanitation workers to help pick up,” Sobers explained.
Speaking about the company, Sobers said their mission was to help bolster the presence of local businesses online.
“Our goal is to basically help empower local businesses, even small vendors and even larger, more established businesses to access a greater customer base.
“We use various search engines, one of them being Google, and we use a few others so we can get better results than Google. What we do then is we take the standard platform that we configure on our platform, and we customise it for the local customer. We can make sure that all of their social media appears, then provide a QR code for sharing their listing,” Sobers explained.
Among the volunteers was Aneefa Ali, a teacher at Lockerbie College, who believes that solving the litter problem begins with education.
“There should be posters given out to every school,” she said, stressing that the fight against littering must start with the youth.
Ali also called for stronger enforcement measures and suggested the introduction of litter wardens with the ability to impose fines on those who commit infractions.
For Sobers and his team, the effort is about more than a clean beach — it’s about building a culture of respect for the environment, one small act at a time.
(STT)
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