A giant metal fence will be installed in Guatemala to retain thousands of tons of plastic carried by the rivers and which end up in the Caribbean Sea.
A Dutch NGO, The Ocean Cleanup, continues its collection of plastics dumped in the oceans and embarks on a new mission in Guatemala to retain the thousands of tons of plastic carried by the rivers and which end up in the Caribbean Sea. A giant metal fence will be installed in the municipality of Chinautla (center) on the Las Vacas River, a tributary of the Motagua River which flows into the Gulf of Honduras, the director and founder of the NGO told AFP on Wednesday. , Boyan Slat.
During the rainy season in Guatemala, flash floods carry huge amounts of plastic and other waste from the capital city of Guatemala, and this sturdy barrier will serve to hold them back. “The ‘interceptor’ captures all the trash that spills into the river and when the water level drops, all the trash that accumulates against the fence will be extracted,” the 27-year-old said on the banks of LasVacas.
According to estimates by The Ocean Cleanup, the plastics transported each year by Las Vacas before ending up on the Caribbean beaches of Guatemala and Honduras, represent 2% of all the plastic waste annually dumped in the oceans of the globe. They come mainly from a landfill in Guatemala City and make the Motagua “one of the most polluting rivers in the world”, Slat said. “One of the ways to achieve rid of plastic waste from the oceans is to stop the flow that comes through the rivers,” he said.
“1,000 rivers are responsible for about 80% of the pollution coming from waterways”
On its website, the NGO indicates that rivers are the main source of plastic pollution in the oceans, “they are the arteries that transport waste from the land to the ocean”. According to its own studies “1,000 rivers are responsible for about 80% of the pollution coming from waterways” and the objective of the NGO is to “attack these 1,000 most polluting rivers in the world “.
The Ocean Cleanup is currently carrying out several plastic recovery projects around the world, mainly using collector boats such as in Malaysia, Indonesia, the Dominican Republic and Jamaica. Other missions are under study in the United States and Thailand.