Come for the beaches, say tourism ads for the Dominican Republic.
But it has some beaches you might want to skip right now.
The Caribbean nation is known for sapphire seas and ivory beaches, but it is grappling with waves of garbage washing up on its shores, a vivid reminder of the presence of thousands of tons of plastic in the world’s oceans.
Those piles, most notably the “Great Pacific Garbage Patch,” are usually far from human settlements, to say nothing of resort destinations.
But instead of visitors relaxing on Montesinos Beach in the capital, Santo Domingo, there has been an altogether different scene, one unlikely to wind up on a postcard: Hundreds of city workers and volunteers who have been waging an uphill battle against wave after wave of sludgy garbage.
Images have shown teams using pikes, shovels and excavators to lift the garbage, only to be met with new waves carrying even more.
Sixty tons of garbage have been collected on the beach since last week, Reuters reported. The haul included plastic bottles and Styrofoam takeout boxes, Parley for the Oceans, an organization that works to reduce plastic waste in the world’s oceans, said in a statement.
The images are shocking, but perhaps not for people who live in the Dominican Republic. “It happens pretty much all the time if there is a strong rainfall or a storm,” said Cyrill Gutsch, the founder of Parley for the Oceans, in a telephone interview.
The phenomenon is not confined to the Dominican Republic, he said, and can be seen in many developing nations with a coastline. “Everybody uses the rivers and the beaches as dump sites.”
What is happening in the Dominican Republic is only a small symptom of the larger global problem, Mr. Gutsch said. Plastic dumped in and near rivers washes into the ocean, and only a small percentage bounces back onto shore. The majority makes it to the high seas.
Mr. Gutsch said that recycling was a short-term solution and amounted to only a bandage. Parley for the Oceans advocates phasing out single-use plastic altogether.
The plastic waste washing onto Montesinos Beach comes from the Ozama River, which flows into the Caribbean nearby, one of those in charge of the cleanup, Gen. Rafael Antonio Carrasco, told Reuters.
“What you don’t see in the picture is all the toxic stuff,” Mr. Gutsch said, adding that once it is out in the open, plastic breaks down and releases chemicals that are impossible to capture.
Wildlife trapped in the debris and humans affected by the toxic particles in the waves are all at risk, local environmentalists said.
I read somewhere that a high-school kid identified a bacteria that eats plastic, and that was considered as a solution to this mess, but I don’t know what became of it. (it probably eats plastic and shits another poison)
Plastic should never have been used for anything. There are a whole slew of gadgets we’d never have without plastics, but mountains of toxic garbage that doesn’t decompose were entirely predictable.
We have plastic because it’s profitable. And the profit takers should clean up the mess.
Global warming caused it!!!!
I’ve got plenty of garbage next door to my shop that’s from the d.r. and a lot of it ends up on my property. I hope some of mine ended up on their island.
All kidding aside, the people responsible for this created and profited from this abomination and ALWAYS hand us the tab. They’ll even profit off that.
The worlds beaches are turning from sand into crushed plastic particles. There are debris fields made of plastic the size of Texas churning in our oceans, Donald chump could care less, the walking hair cluster fk could care less about plastic waste in our oceans.