Tumaco among the garbage: plastics and waste took to the streets and waterways

The dilemma with garbage in the municipality of the Pacific Nariñense, at first, seemed like a “slight” planning problem on the part of Aguas de Tumaco, a public water, sewer and toilet utility company. According to the villagers, the beaches were the most affected, especially after the holiday season.

This happened several years ago, but at the beginning of 2021, tons of garbage of all kinds were dammed on the beaches of Bajito. The images showed that where the water should go, only waves of waste were seen.

In the Foro por Tumaco Oficial group, they reported with images the problem at that time. They pointed out that the same community always ended up solving the problem. “The people have to bear the uncontrolled consumerism of those who have more to spend,” and they added that in the neighborhoods of wealthy people strangely garbage if it disappears.

Currently, 40% of the population lives in areas close to the sea or that are even on the water. Being immersed in a rich biodiverse area, the impact is very severe, not only from the environmental side; public health is another problem since the inhabitants live among pests, rats, mites and other species, which are attracted to waste. The most affected are children who are already getting sick.

The community recognizes that the problem is not only with the local authorities, there is also a problem of “citizen culture”, sometimes they prefer to throw away the garbage bags and wait for the sea to wash them away, rather than wait for the collection cart to pass.

Much of the garbage is bottles, food packaging, food scraps, among many others. Such pollution has generated environmental problems, such as the impact of wildlife, mainly marine animals. For example, turtles are the species that ingests the most plastic bags, which causes them intestinal obstructions, say environmentalists who have visited the area.

The inhabitants of the beach of Bajito, for example, had not reported whether they left their bags in the place. In fact, in 2016 there were warnings because from other areas, they even left rubble on this beach. But, this does not exempt the mayor's office from taking action to mitigate the problem. Given the situation, the municipal administration held a clean-up day in February where it tried to free up some areas of waste.

Even, the direction of Aguas de Tumaco was changed, on March 20 Heyra Castro took office. This administration activated a contingency plan to mitigate the problem of poor disposal of garbage, installing 15 landfill tanks at the identified critical points. In addition, he announced that he will carry out a diagnosis of the collection cars, work on educational and awareness-raising campaigns.

These actions are carried out with the aim of mitigating the problem of garbage, since large waste was being deposited in corners and parks of the city; which generated a process of not only environmental but visual pollution for both those who live in Tumaco and those who visit it.

“We did the cleaning of these spaces and in those same places we installed the tanks that have holes to evacuate the water since we are in winter time,” the director of Aguas de Tumaco told Diario del Sur. He assured that this is not the final solution, but, it helps to prevent, which means that it will gradually eliminate the dilemma of garbage.

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