National coastal clean up finds too much plastic

Most people spend their Saturdays resting and relaxing at home after a hard week’s work. But in late September, over eight hundred volunteers including students, members of scouts and various conservation organizations descended on beaches and riversides all over the country. No, not for recreation, but armed with garbage bags, determined to get thousands of pounds of garbage out of the country’s waterways. According to National Scout Executive Hilberto Riverol, while the quantity of garbage collected in the thirteenth national coastal clean up programme

has decreased, plastics remain a troubling pollutant.

Hilberto Riverol, National Scout Executive

?The reason for doing it is to assist in cutting the amount of debris that we find on the beaches.?

?When we collect the debris we record it, and based on what we find, then we try to approach those people responsible for polluting and try to find amicable solutions to that problem.?

Patrick Jones

?What debris did you find in this year?s clean up??

Hilberto Riverol

?Based on statistics from last year, we found out that we collected basically almost the same type of debris which is a lot of plastic bottles, a lot of plastic bags, straws, bottle caps, foam cups and foam plates. Basically what we are finding is that most of the debris is an inland problem.?

The data collected from this year’s activity will be forwarded to the Ocean Conservancy in Washington for compilation into a report to be used in an environmental education programme designed to decrease the pollution of rivers, and other important waterways in Belize.