Project Cleanup of the Motagua River in Puerto Cortés

Río Motagua, one of the most polluted rivers in the world!

Local Club: Rotary Club Puerto Cortés, Honduras C.A, District 4250
International Club: Rotary Club of Yankton Rotary Number 1470 District 5610
Contacts:
Ana María Pineda Durant; Mobile (+504) 9979-9175, anapinedadurant@yahoo.com.
Ara Bella Laínez Cartagena; Mobile (+504) 3148-9929, aralainez@gmail.com

Project Location: Buena Vista Community, Omoa, Cortés.
Budget: USD 129,257

Motagua River

The Motagua River basin covers 103 municipalities in total, of which 76 are located in12 departments of Guatemala and 27 in 4 departments of Honduras.- This is the second largest river in Guatemala, with an extension of 486 km and an average annual flow of 208.7 cubic meters of water per second. and one of the most polluted in the world, as it carries 3% of the world’s total waste.

Las Vacas river

The problem of pollution through flows begins from the Las Vacas River, considered one of the main drains of greatest pollution because it is located in the capital of Guatemala, where some three million people live and which joins the flow of the Motagua River, dragging large amounts of residential waste into its waters. factories and hospitals, which are not properly treated or collected to minimize environmental impact.

Omoa area

Trash found in the Motagua River is causing significant damage to coastal marine ecosystems and other Honduran collective assets. The monumental accumulation of garbage and the pollution it produces are killing different species of fish and turtles, threatening the protected areas of Cuyamel-Omoa and the Omoa National Park, where most of the municipality’s water-generating projects are located.

Omoa is a coastal community bordering Guatemala, which has a territorial extension of 393.7 square kilometers and a total population of 53,771 inhabitants, its main sources of income being fishing, tourism, agriculture and livestock.

The Motagua River marks the border between the communities of Puerto Barrios-Guatemala and Omoa-Honduras at its mouth to the Caribbean Sea.- Due to the strong problem of pollution generated by the MotaguaRiver, in the rainy season, large tons of solid waste, sewage and other pollutants are dragged through its waters to its mouth. specifically between the communities of Omoa and Puerto Barrios, resulting in the contamination of more than 30 km of coastal beach and damage to the marine fauna of Honduras.

Motagua River Adoption Agreement

Due to this worrisome environmental crisis, our Rotary Club of Puerto Cortés was born to raise awareness and motivate various clubs in Honduras, later becoming the signing of the « Motagua River Adoption Agreement », through which all the Rotary clubs of Honduras sealed their commitment to join the clubs of Guatemala and Belize to together rescue the Motagua River and stop the pollution that causes the Rotary River. environment.

As a result of this great environmental impact, a major problem has been generated in the community of Omoa, which deals with the large accumulations of solid waste and other pollutants such as hospital waste that are not commercial due to the loss of their properties and their high degree of danger, thus becoming; in a great economic and environmental problem for the authorities of Omoa due to its high costs of collection, classification and mobilization on a continuous basis.

In addition to this great problem, the community of Omoa does not have adequate governance laws on environmental issues, nor a sanitary landfill as such, nor a collection system that helps mitigate the negative impact generated by the pollution by the Motagua River, not to mention all the garbage generated by the community. which is concentrated in an open-air dump and clandestine places, without any type of sanitary control.

Project Objectives

“Barra del Motagua Multiple Services Company Entrepreneurs”

The « Barra del Motagua Entrepreneurial Multiple Services Company » made up of a group of people from the communities of La Barra del Motagua and Unión Barra of the Municipality of Omoa, will be in charge of leading the recycling company which will have its facilities in the community of Buena Vista and where practical processes will be carried out such as: collecting, buying, sorting, compacting, and selling the different types of materials that have commercial value.
Within its main resources, the company will have adequate facilities, machinery, equipment, supplies, financial resources and training that guarantee its success and sustainability.
To maximize its impact, the company will develop a significant network of recyclers to provide it with recyclable materials for commercial use and solid waste reduction in the community.
The company, through its early collection operations, will contribute to the environment in reducing solid waste that contaminates water, soil, air and wildlife and will provide collectors with the opportunity for sources of income that allow them to bring sustenance to their homes.

Collection Center Area

The « Collection Center » will be located in the community of Buena Vista, which is 2 km away from the coastal beach, mouth of the Motagua River and 6 km from Cuyamel, the largest community in the Municipality of Omoa, which has a population of 20 thousand inhabitants and is 15 minutes away between the border of Honduras and Guatemala.

Recycling and environmental education programs

Recycling and environmental education programs will be implemented with schools and colleges. This includes teaching students about human impact on the environment and promoting eco-friendly practices on a day-to-day basis, through talks on environmental issues by experts or professionals in areas such as biodiversity conservation, recycling, and water protection.
Research projects that encourage students to carry out research related to the environment, such as: studying the quality of water in their local area, researching endangered species or analyzing the school’s carbon footprint.
Themed days for the environment such as: « Arbor Day » in which students plant trees, or « A Day Without Plastic » in which the reduction of plastic use is promoted.

Sustainability of the Project

The « Motagua River Pollution Cleanup » Project, Puerto Cortés, Honduras, will have four essential components for its sustainability.

1. The concretization of the company called « Empresa de Servicios Múltiples Emprendedores Barra del Motagua » which will carry out basic activities such as: purchase, collection, classification, compaction and sale of all recyclable materials with commercial value and other activities that diversify its operations, always within the framework of recycling and in support of the protection of the environment. This company will be led by an organized group from the communities of La Barra del Motagua and Unión Barra, which will be trained in administrative, operational, logistics, equipment and commercial recyclable materials, which will generate sources of income for the company for its sustainability.
2. As an important part of the project, six annual clean-up days will also be developed, with a duration of 5 years, in which protected areas of the Municipality of Omoa will be intervened, which have been strongly affected by the pollution dragged by the Motagua River and which are habitats for various species of animals, plants and wetlands. This process will be developed from the collection of non-commercial solid waste, which will be separated, to finally be transported by the Cemento del Norte Company (CENOSA) to its facilities and be used as fuel in its boilers. At this stage of the project we will have a support counterpart through the alliance with the NGO « Cuerpos de Conservación Omoa » (CCO) that will intervene in the cleaned areas with reforestation days, which will be a joint work to mitigate the impact of the great pollution generated by the Motagua River.
3. Among the main components that will favor the sustainability of the project will be the alliances with municipal authorities, educational authorities, boards, private companies and NGOs committed to the search for environmental solutions for the protection of the ecosystems of the Omoa community.
4. As a primary component for sustainability, we will work with schools, communities and collectors, in the search to provide them with the knowledge, awareness and importance of creating good habits of environmental protection and the importance of recycling for the well-being of the community.

Project achievements

Among the main achievements of the « Motagua River Pollution Cleanup » project, Puerto Cortés, Honduras, will be to mitigate the severe environmental damage faced by the community due to the accumulation of solid waste dragged by the Motagua River in areas of great importance for the preservation of water, species and plants. At the same time, the circular economy will also be favored through the minimization of solid waste generated by the community, which will contribute to the health of ecosystems to avoid the loss of biodiversity, this carried out through sustainable processes that contribute to the activation of the local economy through the generation of sources of employment for the collectors and group involved in the project.
Raising awareness of the importance of protecting the environment in schools and communities, thus allowing them to generate cultural changes in the inhabitants.

Phase 2

After developing the first phase we’ll move forward to the second phase through an important alliance with END PLASTIC SOUP and other actors, which will allow us to transform many types of plastics into a new product, of commercial use and self-sustainable.