The ‘Most Garbage in a Generation’ washes up on East Beach Grand Turk

By Dana Malcolm 

Staff Writer

#TurksandCaicos, June 19, 2023 – An unexplained mass of garbage has made its way onto the Turks and Caicos’ beaches, concerned over the occurrence and what it means for the island’s beaches, residents and the DECR are now rushing to clean it up.

A resident reached out to Magnetic Media this week to explain the situation.

“There is a huge influx of garbage which has blown onto the east coast of Grand Turk, totally littering the entire coast with thousands of plastic bottles and hundreds of thousands of pieces of broken styrofoam boxes.”

We are told up to seven miles of beachfront  are affected and there’s no concrete explanation on where it came from.

“This may have come from a major dumping at sea or maybe a landfill being breached by recent flooding and washing out to sea in a neighboring country.” the resident said.

There were in fact significant rainstorms in the Turks and Caicos and neighboring countries in the last few weeks resulting in some cases of severe flooding.

The resident described the sheer amount of garbage as the most dire situation  in nearly a generation.

“This is the worst single influx of garbage I have seen in 25 years of living on this beach, which we clean daily,” we were told.

Subsequent to the outcry, an official cleanup was arranged for this past Saturday June 17th; it attracted commendable support including help from the Turks and Caicos Hotel and Tourism Association.

The mission has been dubbed: ‘Operation Beach Clean-up’ and took place on East Beach, with trash collection starting as early as 7 a.m.