ඉන්ටර්සෙප්ටර් නිසා සුද්ද වෙන මොටැගුවා නදිය

Garbage interceptor installed in Guatemala's largest river to tackle pollution

A garbage interceptor has been installed in the Motagua River, Guatemala's largest river that flows into the Gulf of Honduras, as the river has become an ecological disaster for the world's oceans.

As one of the most polluted rivers in Latin America, the Motagua River receives daily garbage from more than one million people living in Guatemala.

Many people dump trash illegally on mountains near the river. During the rainy season, the water rises and carries all the garbage with it.

"When it rains, mud, garbage and everything just come down with the river flow. The river passes here and it is black and stinking. It doesn't even let you sleep because of the stench that comes from the river," said Saturnino Muyus Vasquez, a local recycler.

In response, the government of Guatemala allowed the Ocean Cleanup, an non-governmental organization that is developing and scaling technologies to rid the oceans of plastic by installing an interceptor in a stream of the river to prevent millions of tons of garbage from continuing to reach the Gulf of Honduras and the Caribbean Sea.

"But the most serious thing about this river is the great accumulation of non-recyclable materials, such as duroport, which is one of the major pollutants, and there we can see a large accumulation of plastics of different types, plastic bags, remains of utensils, ending up on the coasts of Honduras, which is the main problem," said Maria Jose Hernandez, chief operating officer of Biosfera GT, a Guatemalan organization dedicated to reducing the environmental deterioration of water bodies and improving the quality of life of Guatemalans.

In April 2024, this interceptor managed to capture a total of 1,400 tons of plastic in a single rainy night. The garbage was then shredded and transformed into other elements.

"From this side, the material comes out, and this machine helps us bring the material up to the other machine, and then there is a heating process that melts the plastic, and the final result is this kind of pole," explained a worker responsible for garbage processing.

The new government in Guatemala has agreed to a public-private partnership to save this river in 10 years. Despite the effectiveness of garbage interceptors in collecting garbage, the problem still remains.

It is imperative for the government to tackle the root cause of the problem, namely, people's wrong mindset, so that millions of Guatemalans will stop throwing their garbage into the river that reaches the world's oceans.

• Tags:
• featured