No, but it has a market value.
it can be sold.

onehellofalott of the plastic bottles that just washed up were flat like the ones in elberts photo.

They have collection bins on the street corners that bring in lots o bottles. It seems the energy/eagerness to collect plastic is more that the crap that washes up, its the daily garbage the village produces as well. They have a kinda pride as to how much gets bundled and shipped off the island.
I don't know about the economic benefits from tonnage but they seem to boast about the number of bundles.
The place looks cleannnnnn.
I think the bundles in the photo may be going in to be compressed.

Maybe we should start a co-operative - put our money where our fingers are.

Develop a class for schools. Bury a plastic bottle and piece of wood or paper, dig it up the next year. Plastic is still there. Teach recycling.

In some areas of Belize the garbage was thrown into the sea, at least in the past. In the 90's I began to see disposible diapers washing on shore.

It is all about education and pride. I do not live in Belize at this time or I would do it.

A commercial recycling company is starting up in Belize. The owner is hoping to have an operation on AC.
When I know more about this I'll post it. Hopefully we can all pitch in.

The Owner is Osmond Martinez.

There is a place that buys the used plastic pints near Rasta Mike's boat repair. I saw a kid carrying a huge sack of empty pints and asked. He said they paid him 10 cents each. You used to be able to sell empty rum bottles for 25 cents each. I am sure there are several international conservation groups that would be delighted to help the town but that would require the mayor or TC or Area Rep to get it started. I notice an article in the Sun that says they are going to start hauling non biodegradable trash to the mainland and there will be a charge for picking up trash in the future. I was hoping it would get posted to the board. We really need a recycling program that is mandatory, then we can teach the kids why we are doing it. I believe that the trash problem, crime problem and obvious environmental degradation is why our tourism is declining. Our decline started about 4 years ago which is before the economic woes. We are so small and so unique that I think we should have been able to continue to grow rather than declining so sharply. We should be careful to not blame it all on world economic conditions, we also need to do a better job across the board and try really hard to clean up the place (our home).

Years ago, when I first started going to Belize, some of my work peers offered scathing comments. While they hadn't been to Belize themselves, they had friends that had been. The word was that the country's trash problem was disgusting, particularly along the beaches and that Belize was not a good place to go. My friends told me they would never go to Belize because of the garbage problem.

Obviously, I didn't let their concerns nor anything I've seen with my own eyes, deter me. I'm sorry for my friends' ignorance and saddened by their requirement for a pristine vacation experience.

All that said, those people were a group with lots of tourist dollars to spend, that won't ever get spent in Belize.

I'm looking forward to learning more about the Utila program.

HI Seashell - gosh, it's soooo easy for "first" world mentalities to judge what is such a young country - in the UK where i come from, or the US, 30 years ago -did we care about trash? about recycling? about plastic? of course not - if we are 30 years behind on AC so yes we need ideas, and help but i find it so sad that people judge from their a/conditioned offices in the US or europe without understanding what this country is, its individuality and independence. It's not that we don't care, we are learning, isn't that right?

Please understand the trash on our beaches is NOT Belizean. It comes from many places. The wind and currents deposit it on our beaches. It's not our trash, just our problem.