AmbergrisCaye.com Home Forums The Cayes Caye Caulker Garbage Issue on the island

Google cruise ship garbage, just one of pages....
Cruise ships use Caribbean Sea as a waste dump - YouTube
► 7:45► 7:45
www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-YEL5e_Fj8
Dec 28, 2010 - Uploaded by JCVdude
Under the current Caribbean regulations, ships can begin dumping garbage, including metal, glass and paper ...

Google it, they're all lying?

This is what I have observed on Northern Ambergris Caye.

It's not the cruise ships as much as you would believe. Cruise ships tend to mulch their garbage before dumping. That's when you find little bits (2") of plastic bags mixed into the sargasso. The worst ships are the freighters from them we see industrial marine equipment & light bulbs, bottles (Taiwan, Phillipines, China) even old diesel barrels.

Belize in the western point in the Caribbean. Garbage on the beaches blows in from all over Central & South America and the Caribbean. The garbage is the worst during the raining season when the rivers flush out to the sea. We routinely find bottles from Jamaica, DR, Honduras, Nicaragua, Turks & Caico, Colombia and Suriname. Even found an empty MRE from Haiti after the earthquake there. Ever since the recession there are not as many shoes washing up.

That is not to say that garbage does not always get properly disposed here in Belize.

Whatever.
In your first 4 posts you informed us that
1.YOU'RE A WEALTHY DOPE GROWER AND WE'RE ALL DRUNK AND GETTING SCREWED.
2. YOU SOLD SOME LAND TO THE CRUISE SHIP LINES, (NO AGENDA THERE?)
3. YOU HAVE 20,000 ACRES SO WE ALL SHOULD BE TAXED MORE
4. BELIZEANS ARE THE SOLE TRASH PROBLEM
Welcome, I'm sure you'll be making a lot of friends.

Coleen, I have had the exact same experience as you. I walk the beach every morning all winter long and the trash that I pick up is not Cruise Ship trash although on a few occasions while out boating I've seen the shredded trash floating by that you talk of.

The majority of the trash comes from the rivers and eastern points of land just as you stated. Cruise ship trash was a problem at one time but through some tough penalties imposed on them they have cleaned up their act for the last several years I believe.

The trash I find is household trash like old toys; cleaning containers; plastic tubs and such. On occasion I have found some medical waste trash also. Most of this originates in Central America including Belize.

The issue Mr Miller is addressing, isn't really about cleaning the beach and where the beach trash comes from. Unless there has been a big storm, we don't get as much trash floating up as you would expect, in my opinion. I think my opinion is valid since I have been living here on Caye Caulker for 13 years, on the beach, or near the beach. The village council does a great job raking the streets and a large portion of the beach, in my opinion also. I came as a tourist BEFORE the beach reclamation, and BEFORE the Village Council so diligently began to rake the beach and clean the streets, and the island was pretty trashy, THEN.
I think Dane has hit the nail on the head about the old guys who have been hauling trash for years, are using the system correctly. Its the young guys and new workers from other parts of Central America who want to hurry up and make fast money, cutting corners and just dumping trash. Its about the dumping.
Every shop, convenience store or take away shop for food create a lot of street rash. They should be required to have a trash barrel outside of it for their customers to use. Unfortunately, many of the shops are Chinese owned, and they do not understand the trash issues the same as we do. I am not slamming the Chinese, they just don't see environmental issues with the same eye as we do. I have personal experience with this as my store at one time, was located right next to a Chinese owned convenience store, and they didn't have anything available for their customers to throw trash in. So local people would walk out with bags of chips and candy wrappers and drop them on my step, making my place look at littered and junky. From my experience, tourists usually don't throw garbage on the ground. They look for somewhere to throw it, or put it in their backpack or pocket until they can find a trash can. I talked and talked to the store owner about getting a trash can, showing them the trash they were generating on the street, until I was blue in the face. And in the end, I put my own giant garbage can out on the edge of my area, and I paid out of pocket for a guy to take the trash to the dump, every day the can was full of dirty baby diapers and convenience store trash, and anonymous household trash. My store generated probably about 1/2 a bag of trash a week. I did this because it was better than cleaning up in front of my store and raking up the garbage in the empty lot next to me, since it made my place look dirty. They would also pile up empty cardboard boxes under a neighboring building, creating a huge draw for mosquitos, and leave those wet boxes under there for weeks. The property owner was pretty passive about doing anything to change this, he didn't want to be the bad guy I guess. Talking doesn't help, when the people you are talking to don't even understand the words you are saying.
So what is a solution? There is no "One Solution" approach, its multifaceted. But to start, the Village Council or the liquor license board could create a local ordinance requiring shop owners having trash cans, since most of them have liquor licenses, the Liquor License Board might be able to enforce this ordinance once its put into place.
Just my 2 cents.

Also, an anti littering education campaign that starts with kids in primary school. I remember in the 1960s being on a family trip in the car and just throwing our trash out the car window onto the side of the highway, because everybody did it and nobody thought it was bad. And then the "Don't be a Litter Bug!" campaign started in school and on TV and we were taught not to do that. It wasn't cool. The kids will carry it home to the parents.
Around that time the American Cancer Society started their anti-smoking campaigns too. Drinking and Driving became illegal, and we were required to wear seatbelts in cars.

Better to be a drinker than a pot-head. At least a drinker can become smart again by sobering up.

Lotta Trolls out today....

Yea, he makes 80K in 90 days growing legal pot. I've seen a legal grow-op. The guy had six registered legal buyers (which is average for a permit), but grew 50+ plants that where so tall it would make that "Jack and the Bean stock" guy tired just thinking about climbing them let alone smoke it all.