Eradicating Single-use Plastic on the Campuses of Belize  

At the beginning of the year, Wesley Junior College jumped into the Plastic Tide Turners Challenge, a worldwide youth initiative aimed at tackling plastic pollution by spreading awareness and taking action in their communities. Teaming up with the Sea of Life Organization, students got tech-savvy, using technology to clean up their campus and conduct waste audits. Fast forward nearly a year, and the school is making impressive strides toward eliminating single-use plastics on campus. We visited the school today to catch up on their progress. Here’s News Five’s Britney Gordon with story.

 

Britney Gordon

Wesley Junior College is making great progress in cutting down on single-use plastics on campus. Back in January, students rolled up their sleeves for a campus cleanup and used the Trash Blitz app to track the most common litter. Since then, they’ve installed a refillable water station and stopped selling plastic water bags on campus. Paulita Bennett-Martin, the Director of Programs at Sea of Life, shared that they’ve conducted four Trash Blitz exercises since then, and the results are looking very promising.

 

Paulita Bennett-Martin, Director of Programs, Sea of Life

“We’ve done four waste audits on the campus and back last time you were here, we were finding hundreds of the shilling water or ideals pouches, right? And now I will say that number has decreased dramatically. I can’t give that number because we’re gonna have a report in February that tracks waste across the nation. But we’re seeing huge improvements to the amount of single use plastic water pollution on campus. And we’re also starting to see more awareness of plastic pollution as a whole because we’re also incorporating murals on the campus. We’re also doing classroom education. So there’s a few different things happening in addition to the refillable campus.”

 

To further increase awareness about the projects, the school partnered with local artist Keon Griffith, who was commissioned to paint three murals on the outside of the school. He has been working on the murals for about a month.

 

Keon Griffith, Artist

“It’s more like a give back type of stuff. So I asked her that, yes, I know you want a concept with this, but I think instead of formulating a concept, let’s just go on the school grounds and engage with these students and Let me bring in a photographer to capture these pictures so I can fully showcase my talent and fully be comfortable with the style that I do so we can have the best results partnering for this campaign. So that’s what we’re doing out here. So there is real students, actual students that goes to the school here. It’s on, it’s plastered on the wall, big, lifelike. And they love so far. They love the interaction is nice with the students engaging with the mural passing, identifying their classmates, so it’s nice.”

 

A key part of the project is getting young people excited about conservation. Fourth-form student Kayla Choc shares that she’s made a big effort to cut down on single-use plastics in her daily life.

 

Kayla Choc, Student, Wesley Junior College

“I’ve grown to know that single-use plastic is making our environment unhealthy, where it’s an unhealthy space to learn in, and if we have a healthier space to learn in, we can be more open-minded about what’s going on. And not only that, but we’re against this, we’re, our school is right across by the sea. It’s our neighbor. So we want to not only think about us, But think about the sea life. So those are some stuff that I’ve learned.”

 

Tyrone Harris, the Head of the Science Department, assured us that the campus water is top-notch, thanks to a reverse-osmosis process that filters out all sediments and purifies it. Plus, the school has exciting plans to install a second water fountain in the coming months.

 

Tyrone Harris, Department of Science, Wesley Junior College

“We definitely want them to be more aware and so it’s the goal of having them being aware of having a clean environment, having participating in conservation and also being an institution that is near the sea, have a care for the marine ecosystems and the flora and the fauna that play a vital role in us surviving, providing food and also  jobs as well.”

 

With more funding, Sea of Life hopes to expand this project to other schools across the country. Britney Gordon for News Five.

 

Tackling Belize’s Pollution Problem Through Technology