Welcome to my first Basura Cero Puerto Rico Newsletter! I’m
the new Executive Director, and I’ll be writing you every month to let you know
what’s going on in our island on everything (zero) waste.
2019 is lining up to
be a banner year for recycling world-wide. Last year, for the first time in
history, the world saw billions of dollars in investments go to clean energy. This
year, we are seeing multinational corporations and governments ban plastics,
transition to biodegradable packaging, and strengthen their recycling plans, worldwide.
And not a minute too soon, because 8 million metric tons of plastic enter the ocean every year,
and the World Wide Fund for Nature has
estimated that over 100,000 whales, seals, and turtles die every year as a
result of eating or being trapped by plastic bags found in the oceans, not to
mention countless seabirds that die of starvation with bellies full of plastics.
If we do not stop this trend, by 2050
there will be more plastic in the oceans than there are fish by weight.
Multinational
corporations are joining forces to use biodegradable packaging, and
some corporate icons are jumping onto a zero-waste
platform called Loop to accustom customers to reusing
containers and creating a circular economy.
In the Caribbean, Jamaica,
Barbados, Belize, Bahamas, Costa Rica, Dominica, Granada, and Trinidad and
Tobago have prohibited single-use plastics and polystyrene cups. Barbados
is banning plastic altogether, and Dominica
is fueling its energy needs entirely from volcanic geothermal energy.
The European
Market has banned single-use plastics. Barcelona
has opened the first packaging-free store in its history. Entire neighborhoods
in Manila,
the Philippines, have made themselves “Zero Waste”. Chile
has banned the use of plastic bags in all businesses. As of January
1, 2019, bans have
been introduced in 54 countries
with varying degrees of enforcement, and 32 other countries are imposing a charge per bag.
In the US, Hawaii
and California have statewide plastic bag bans. 349
cities and counties in the US have banned plastic bags, including Washington
DC, San Francisco, Seattle, and Boston. Vancouver
and Halifax, Canada, have declared climate change emergencies and enacted
plastic bans. Nations like Kenya,
the United Kingdom, Australia, and China have banned plastic bags in
their countries. Here’s
a worldwide map of cities, regions,
nations, and states that have banned plastic materials.
In Puerto Rico, single-use plastic bags have been banned
from supermarkets, yet we throw away over 3.8 million pounds of trash a year, and
the island has a long way to go before it can implement a comprehensive recycling
plan. Of 119 historical landfills on the island, only 29 are currently
operating, and of those, 19 will be closed by the EPA soon because they are not in compliance
with regulations. As a consequence, those landfills are leaching toxic
chemicals into our underground aquifers and contaminating the drinking water of
hundreds of thousands of people. 81
out of 98 municipios have Recycling Coordinators. Precocious
entrepreneurs have created recycling operations for cardboard, paper,
plastic,
fallen
trees, composting
organic materials, food waste, electronics,
glass,
and repair centers,
and there is room for many more recycling-related businesses, because we
currently only recycle 10% of our wastes.
There’s no doubt Boricuas do the best we can under trying
conditions, and there are many committed people that are already recycling or want
to recycle on the island. So, I am making it my personal mission this year to
launch a signature campaign to ask our political leaders to write and approve a
comprehensive recycling plan for the island.
I will continue Basura Cero’s work
with our private sector sponsors in helping them minimize, segregate, and
recycle their waste. I will continue our outreach to academic and government
entities and work with them to educate students and government workers in
creative ways of “consuming less and enjoying more.” And I will create a Basura
Cero Consultancy program that will be available to communities and small
businesses needing our services. Our flagship recycling program will be a
“Waste X-Ray” for Puerto Rico, so we can classify our waste and create a
strategic action plan to reach our goal of 70% recycling by 2025.
To do all this I will need the continued support and
commitment from the many selfless volunteers that have worked so hard
throughout the years to make Puerto Rico a cleaner, healthier, more sustainable
place to live. I look forward to working closely with all of you, and if you
haven’t yet signed up to help in one of our many events, make sure you do so now.
Let me leave you with one high note. Basura Cero Puerto Rico
and the municipal workers of San Juan, helped ‘clean’ Las Fiestas de la Calle
San Sebastian 2019 by segregating and recycling 172,490 pounds of trash, out of
a total
372,530 pounds of waste. We segregated 46% of all waste materials. High
percentages of recycling can be achieved. It’s all a matter of a little
planning, a steadfast commitment, and joyful people working on it.
I wish all of you the best for 2019 and hope to see you the
next time you decide you want to change the world for the better.
