October 29, 2008

WiLDCOAST, Televisa and Promotora Ambiental Organize Mexico’s First Ever National beaches, Lakes and Rivers Cleanup We thank the government of Veracruz for its leadership role and support

In first-world countries such as the United States, Canada, Britain, Australia and New Zealand, we take it for granted that someone somewhere is in charge of picking up trash from houses, parks, streets and beaches. But in developing countries like Mexico, the trash crisis has literally become an epidemic. From the point breaks of Northern Baja to the river-mouth lefts and beachbreaks of southern Mexico, plastic and all kinds of debris are now a permanent part of the coastal landscape.

In the U.S., volunteer organizations participate in the annual National Coastal Clean Up Day each September, in which hundreds of thousands of people scour the coastline nationwide for trash, picking up thousands of tons of debris. In Mexico, however, rural coastal communities have almost no support for establishing landfills and eliminating the plague of plastic that is spreading to even the most remote coastal areas. Mexico’s extensive network of rivers carries plastic from cities downstream to the coast. Last year our team visited a remote sea turtle nesting beach in the Gulf of Mexico state of Tamaulipas with our superhero ocean defender, El Hijo del Santo. “I couldn’t believe how much plastic covered a beach so far removed from the nearest city,” said Fay Crevoshay, Communications Director of WiLDCOAST.

According to the United Nations, plastic, is killing more than a million seabirds and 100,000 mammals and sea turtles each year. Bottle tops, plastic bags and foam coffee cups can be found in the stomachs of dead sea turtles, dolphins, and seals. Our colleagues at the Algalita Marine Research Foundation surveyed a large area in the middle of the North Pacific, and found six pounds of plastic for every pound of algae.

So, to counter Mexico’s coastal trash crisis, WiLDCOAST has partnered with Televisa ,Mexico’s biggest national television network, Promotora Ambiental, a for profit company, and the Federal and State Governments to to carry out the country’s first ever National Beaches, Lakes and Rivers Clean Up on the month of November. Through out the month of November more than 135 places will be cleaned by volunteers in 25 states. As a pilot, WiLDCOAST held Mexico’s largest ever single beach cleanup in Playas de Tijuana, just across from the U.S.-Mexico border on February 9th.

Thousands of people from Tijuana and Baja’s northern coastline will join together to clean up one of Baja’s most heavily used and dirtiest beaches. So if you happen to be somewhere on the beach in Mexico this November, gather your friends together, grab some bags and do you part to clean up the surfbreak you take for granted but is being smothered with trash.

Fay Crevoshay