Residents throw trash into Haulover
It’s a sight that would turn any stomach, trash all over, reeking mud, used baby diapers strewn about. But it’s not a landfill or a trash heap, it’s the Haulover Creek. And the situation is getting out of hand with people deliberately throwing buckets and bag fulls into the river every day. Janelle Chanona went up river to find out why the people who live there are polluting their own backyard.
Edward Slusher, Resident
“Everybody dump their garbage in the river. Everybody. People come with their vehicle with their big bag and just dash their garbage in the river like this is a junkyard; this is not a junkyard. This is a river.”
Today’s river scene is one Belize City residents living on the banks of the Haulover Creek wake up to every morning.
Ardy Montez, Resident
“Most of the time, the garbage keep to the side of the river so today we had a very high tide and it just draw all of them out there to the current now.”
Edward Slusher
“When the tide get high, the place, the whole river full up of only garbage.”
Ardy Montez
“Doesn’t look like a city… feel really strange… feel like you’re in another country; in a dirty country.”
All signs and posters urging Belizeans to “Keep Belize Clean” or face fines seem to have failed. At least in this part of town. Residents say everybody goes with the flow.
Edward Slusher
“Nobody, nobody pay it no mind. Everybody just ride in their boat and they ride slow cause they know they can’t go fast. If they go fast, they would wreck up their own machine right.
I feel bad about it because my cousin has a boat and we no want nothing happen to his boat right and it look bad like this cause you know, it look like a real canal then.”
Why are people dumping their trash in the river? One woman says she has no other choice.
Area Resident
“The garbage keep floating in the river because the men that pick up the dirt doesn’t come. So me, myself throw dirt in the river sometimes but I have thing that I put the garbage into but when it get full and the men doesn’t come and pick it up, we throw it in the river.”
Q: “Do you feel bad when you throw garbage in the river?”
Area Resident
“Yes, I feel bad. I say that they should come and pick up the garbage regularly then we would not throw garbage in the river.”
George Lamb, General Manager, Belize Waste Control
“I believe they are blatant abusers. There are people who are not disciplined and they choose to do what they want to do. They choose not to place their garbage for collection; they choose to dump it in the river, regardless of the environmental consequences and they choose not to call Belize Waste Control in the event that their garbage is not collected.”
Janelle Chanona
“While residents in this area may have grown accustomed to the sight of garbage in the Haulover Creek, the bigger picture here is that this debris is rapidly making its way toward the sea, bringing with it, another set of problems for the environment.”
But who is looking out for the environment? It seems no one is at the moment. The Coastal Zone Management Institute says they haven’t received any reports of a garbage problem in the Haulover Creek and therefore could not comment. The Department of the Environment says they know the area is a problem, but it will be dealt with under the National Solid Waste Management Plan. The D.O.E. says an alternative to the dumping practices nationwide is a sanitary landfill but that is also still in the planning stages. Budget cuts at D.O.E. have forced them to stop their public awareness campaigns. While the D.O.E. is bogged down in bureaucracy, area resident Edward Slusher offers a quick fix to an old problem.
Edward Slusher
“I say make them try get in a boat with a “raker” and something and some garbage bags and just drive round in their boat and just hook up all the dirt, put them in a bag; those big sticks, put it in the boat, full it up and discharge it.”
But unless the people in the neighborhood stop throwing the garbage in the river even the changing tide won’t be able to hide the problem for much longer.
Janelle Chanona for News Five.
Garbage isn’t the only pollutant of the Haulover Creek. Residents say they’ve seen employees from a company in the area dump barrels of oil into the river. D.O.E. says its been working with the company to curb the dumping of waste but admits that so far no company has actually been fined. The D.O.E. says it believes building partnerships with offenders rather than simply charging fines will alleviate the problem in the long run. By law anyone found guilty of breaking environmental laws could be charged one hundred dollars while businesses are charged five hundred dollars. Belize Waste Control says the pick-up schedule for garbage on the northside of the city is Mondays and Thursdays while southside pick-ups are on Tuesdays and Fridays. If your trash is not being picked up, you can call B.W.C. and they will come get it. The company says it carries out random checks to ensure drivers stop along their route.
