SEA is proud to be a part of the change in continuing the awareness of the youths on the use of single-use plastic and its effects on our environment, especially marine life. All schools in the communities of Placencia, Seine Bight, and Independence were visited and had fruitful discussions on the topic of Plastic Pollution when we say all, it’s all nine Schools in the 3 communities, these were as follows.
- February 7, 2024 – Church of Christ Primary School in Independence.
- February 8, 2024 – Nazarene pre-school Independence.
- February 9, 2024 – Shiloh Seventh Day Adventist Primary School in Independence in the
morning and Independence Primary School in the afternoon, this was done along with
Oceana Belize and IJC students (ambassadors). - February 12, 2024 – Independence High School
- February 13, 2024 – Independence Junior College; this was done along with Oceana Belize.
- February 16, 2024 – Peninsula International Academy (PIA) in Placencia.
- February 19, 2024 – St. Johns Memorial Anglican Primary School (Placencia) in the
morning and St. Alphonsus Primary School in Seine Bight in the afternoon.
The key focus at each school was for individuals to reflect on their use of single-use plastic. These include disposable Cutlery, Plates, polystyrene containers, Straws, beverage containers, and plastic bags. Most of these items are only used once and discarded. The average time of use is 15 minutes, these items become waste that ends up in the environment and will take anywhere from 20 – 500 years to break down because of the synthetic substance it is made from. Therefore, alternatives were discussed with the students, cloth bags, reusable water bottles, reusable containers, Plastic was made to last forever. It was invented to preserve scarce natural resources; therefore, it was made from synthetic substances through chemical reactions hence the reason it does not decompose but rather breaks down to microplastic which comes right back to us
through the fish we eat, the water we drink, and even the air we breathe.
Our irresponsible action is causing this and it is global, causing pollution on land and in water. Data shows that about 8 million tons of plastic is dumped into our oceans annually. That is equal to a garbage truckload every minute. Therefore, it is everyone’s responsibility for us to be able to have a clean and healthy environment. Let us be the change!!, Was the message sent across. This activity was done as a part of the implementation of the Plastic Tide Turners Challenge (PTTC) program in Belize with support from the Basel Convention Regional Center for Training and Technology Transfer for the Caribbean (BCRC).