Guatemala landfill feeds ‘trash islands’ hundreds of miles away in Honduras

The Interceptor 006 catching garbage during its trial this year. (Photo courtesy of The Ocean Cleanup)

In a video released by The Ocean Cleanup, the trash fence starts out looking like it’s going to succeed. The trash stops at the fence and starts to build up, with the water passing through free of plastic. But after a while, the sheer magnitude of trash gets to be too much and the infrastructure starts to bend. Then holes form and the plastic pushes through.

“We thought we truly cracked the nut,” Slat says, “that we collected what’s roughly a million kilos [2.2 million pounds] of plastic … and then seeing a big chunk of that disappear again, almost literally slipping through our fingers. In the matter of two hours, we went from the highest high to a substantial low.”

The Ocean Cleanup is working on a new type of interceptor that hasn’t operated anywhere else, and which will look “evolutionary rather than revolutionary” when compared to the previous one, Slat says. However, he doesn’t divulge any details about its design.

He also says the organization is working with local partners to develop recycling and incineration programs as well as methods of waste fraction (the sorting of waste into biodegradables, glass, batteries and other categories).

The Guatemala 2.0 solution, as Slat calls it, should be ready by the end of the first quarter of 2023. And while it won’t solve the waste management issues at the landfill or stop illegal dumping at different points along the Motagua River, it should help slow the amount of trash entering the Caribbean.

Banner image: Trash floats near a boat in the Caribbean. Photo courtesy of Caroline Power. 

Citation: Kikaki, A., Karantzalos, K., Power, C. A., & Raitsos, D. E. (2020). Remotely sensing the source and transport of marine plastic debris in Bay Islands of Honduras (Caribbean Sea). Remote Sensing, 12(11), 1727. doi:10.3390/rs12111727

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Animals, Biodiversity, Conservation, Environmental Law, Environmental Politics, Fish, Governance, Oceans, Pollution, Water Pollution

Central America, Guatemala, Honduras, Latin America

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Publish date : 2022-12-23 03:00:00

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