Beach Cleanup
October 5-8, 2024
“Trash can travel through all the world's rivers and oceans, and accumulate on beaches. These wastes damage physical habitats, transport chemical pollutants, threaten aquatic life and interfere with human use of marine and coastal environments"
Why Guna Yala?
The whole Caribbean coast of Panama is vulnerable to receiving trash and this is not only due to the poor local environmental consciousness but also because the East Trade winds come to die here thus depositing all the trash collected throughout much of the Caribbean and also Atlantic.
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For the most part, San Blas remains clean of trash, specially in the islands within our itineraries.
Some inconsiderate boaters along with a few locals are also part of the problem, added to that is the lack of infrastructure or organised means of delivering residues to Panama city to be processed.
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Join us in our quest to clean up part of the islands most affected by trash and help us understand the scope of the problem. By sorting and freeing the shores of trash we will know more about the source and ways to educate and prevent.
"Certain plastic items can take up to 1,000 years to decompose in landfills. The plastic bags we use every day take about 150 years to biodegrade. Plastic bottles (made of PET or PVC) could need a minimum of 450 years”
Our Mission
This project aims to cleanup part of the San Blas islands, conduct a waste audit and educate visitors and locals of how correctly dispose of the garbage they produce or that is found ashore.
We want to encourage visitors to the Guna Yala islands not to leave their garbage “forgotten” behind or even burned, but rather take it back to Panama and recycle it according to the type of waste.
Island affected by trash in San Blas
Cleanup Goals
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1000 kg of waste collected
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Transfer and recycling of all garbage in panama
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Planting posters with information in each cleaned spot
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Study of the trash collected
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Proposal to the Guna Congreso and authorities
“Take only memories leave only footprints”
Logistics
Catamaran Adventures San Blas will:
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Provide the catamaran and all provisions along with the crew
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Recruit 5 volunteers who, for 3 days starting July 5th, will carry out the cleaning tasks of the islands, selecting garbage by type and storing it in certain coordinates, as well as placing information posters.
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Supply all necesary material for trash recollection
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Support for volunteers and crew
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Support for operations
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Coordination with local trash pickup and delivery by Guna Indigenous
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Arrangements for truck delivery to Panama
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Contact with local authorities
Our team of 10: Join us!
Captain: Filled position
Cook: Filled position
Deckhand: Filled position
6 Volunteer: Vacant, Apply Here
Land Coordinator and supervisor in Panama: Vacant, Apply Here
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We accept donations, funds or of any nature. Get in touch with the form below with us if you are interested.