Net bags at the ready, a group of 26 volunteers – a mix of residents and tourists – plunge into the teal Barbadian waters. They drift to the ocean floor, fins kicking against the current, and began their search for marine debris to gather and log using the Project AWARE Dive Against Debris data app. Goggles, bottles, ‘compostable’ plastic cups and strands of fishing line are quickly collected.

“We’ve been doing underwater clean-ups since 1998,” says André Miller, marine biologist and founder of Barbados Blue dive shop. “Even in Carlisle Bay, when we first started, we used to remove thousands of pounds of debris at a time. Nowadays it’s more like 80-90lbs, so we can see that we’ve removed a lot and that hopefully, people are dropping less plastic.”

Like most island nations around the world, Barbados has suffered from discarded single-use materials, but in an innovative move, the government has introduced a gradual ban on single-use plastics. This started on April 1^st this year with a countrywide ban on the importation of petro-based single-use plastics. Vendors and retailers on the island had until July 1^st to use up existing stock. On January 1^st, 2020, a ban on all petro-based plastic bags will come into effect. Cups, cutlery, straws, crockery, egg trays and Styrofoam containers are slowly but surely disappearing from view. “Our sea space is 424 times the size of our land space. I believe we have to treat with more urgency and a greater degree of seriousness the things that are in our ocean,” says Kirk Humphrey, Minister of Maritime Affairs and the Blue Economy in Barbados. “This is our chance to be innovative, creative and self-supporting and look for sustainable, indigenous ways to do our thing. For me, it’s never been about banning plastics but about doing my small part to save our planet and country, and about local entrepreneurs coming up with new ways to do this.”