Reducing and Eliminating the Use of Plastic in Utila
On Wednesday, December 10th The Utila Municipality held the first meeting for the campaign to enforce a Honduran law which prohibits the use of plastic bags in the Bay Islands. This campaign will hopefully start to be implemented at the beginning of March 2015. Implementation and enforcement of the law is going to be a long process but it is certainly a project that will positively benefit Utila for years to come.
Roatan is now in compliance with the law but It took their recycling committee approximately 2 years before it could be fully implemented. However, on the 6th of June, 2014 Roatan accomplished what they wanted: the use
of plastic bags has now been banned on the Island of Roatan, and the island has limited the use of plastic soda bottles. Businesses, residents dive operators and the government of Roatan got involved in the process which is proving to be a success. Everyone needs to get involved in order to change outdated and detrimental habits.
In Utila, implementation probably won’t take quite as long as it did in Roatan as the committee already has everything planned out and they are willing to start in March 2015.
Listed below are some of first steps being taken:
• Committee meetings once a month or twice if need.
• BICA (Bay Islands Conservation Association), Solitur (Bay Islands Tax Free Zone) and RMP (Roatan Marine Park), will be giving all the businesses training.
• Plans to work with Pepsi and Coca-Cola to ban plastic soda bottles being brought and sold on Utila and to work instead with more glass bottles.
• All of the supermarkets (Big and Small), schools (private and public) will be involved.
• Fundraisers and games among other projects will be taking place with the youth of the island to help raised money to support the initiative.
• Starting from January 2015 there will be people working at the Utila recycling plant to get it back in working order for the beginning of March 2015.
• The government will be donating garbage bins for recycling plastic bottles and other forms of plastic and they will be placed in every store to be picked up and delivered to the recycling station.
In Roatan, the government began to enforce a law that after the 6th of June, 2014 anyone who is found still giving out plastic bags and not complying with the law will pay a fine between 1000 to 10 thousand lempiras depending on the usage.
Honduras made an official Law banning the use of plastic bags on the Bay Islands back in 2005.
This is a very important decision and action for the island of Utila that will benefit its residents, visitors and the environment now and into the future!
For more news take a look on facebook: Utila Environmental News
Contact the Utila Municipality if you would like to get involved: 24253668