Littered Highways Threaten Belize’s Beauty and Budget

If you’ve driven along Belize’s highways lately, chances are you’ve seen it, piles of trash scattered along the roadside, turning our beautiful landscapes into something far less picture-perfect. It’s a growing problem, and the Ministry of Infrastructure Development and Housing is speaking out. They say littering isn’t just an eyesore, it’s a threat to wildlife, the environment, and even public health. And the cost? It’s not just environmental. It’s also draining resources that could be used to fix roads and build better infrastructure. Here’s Britney Gordon with the following story.

 

Britney Gordon, Reporting

You see it in the water, on the streets, and lining the highways, trash is everywhere. And it’s becoming a big problem. Belize is known as “The Jewel”, a nickname that reflects its stunning natural beauty and rich cultural heritage. Every year, thousands of visitors come to experience our lush rainforests, vibrant wildlife, and crystal-clear waters. But there’s a not-so-pretty side to this picture: litter. From north to south, garbage piles up along our highways and public spaces, and it’s hard to ignore.

 

Evondale Moody, Chief Engineer, MIDH

“Littering has become a huge problem because every week we pick up more than the previous week, and we have noticed that the locations that we’re picking up beverage from, we are also picking up household garbage. So it seems as though residents are taking their household garbage and leave it out there for us to pick up. And the MIDH is not a garbage company. Honestly, we pick up the garbage because when we cut the highways to do vegetation control, the garbage are there. So it doesn’t make sense for us to leave it there. And so we try to ensure that once we’re doing vegetation control, we come behind and we pick up the garbage at the same time.”

 

 

Trash is a serious health hazard, not only to people, but to the wildlife living in those areas as well. According to Chief Engineer Evondale Moody, cleaning the highways has been costing the ministry a significant amount of time and money- resources that should be spent repairing and developing infrastructure.

 

 

Evondale Moody

“The littering is a significant additional cost that we have incurred, and we continue to incur. The ministry basically has to spend at least two days out of the six days because generally we work up until Saturdays. So at least two days out of every week, we have to be spending time picking up garbage along our highways. This is not just for the George Price Highway. It’s all the highways countrywide. And so that has a cost to it because we have to employ personnel to do that type of work. We have to provide safety vest for them to utilize. We have to pay for the garbage bags for us to load the trashing we have to pay for gloves. We have to pay for the transportation because it’s not just five miles. We have to do the entire length of the highway and each district is responsible for a certain section.”

 

The Ministry of Infrastructure Development and Housing is urging Belizeans to step up and show more civic pride. In a recent statement, the Ministry warned that our bad littering habits are slowly destroying the very environment we all say we love.  And it’s not just MIDH raising the alarm. Minister of Tourism, Anthony Mahler, says the growing trash problem is a serious concern for his ministry too. That’s why they’re rolling out a new campaign, the “Clean Belize Initiative”, aimed at tackling the issue head-on and restoring the beauty of our country.

 

Anthony Mahler, Minister of Tourism

“But we have to take the lead on all of those things. If the rivers are congested before La Rutra Maya, we have to go in there, clean up the river with lags and debris all over the place If it’s silted, then we have to try get some dredging happening. So all of those things come into play. But the Clean Belize Initiative, I think is going to be a great program for us moving forward. to focus on beaches, to focus on the major highways and to focus on just keeping Belize clean and healthy.”

 

The trash is making Belize look bad. It’s as simple as that. According to Mahler, the lack of civic pride is becoming evident on Belize’s reviews.

 

Anthony Mahler

“I’ve also spoke about the amount of litter that we have all over the place, because when you have exit surveys, those are the things that or guests are saying on the surveys. Now this da wa issue, derelict vehicles all over, stray dogs .All of these things.”

 

 

 

 

In 2024, the marine conservation group Sea of Life collected over eighteen thousand pieces of trash, and a whopping seventy-five percent of it was plastic. These plastics don’t break down easily. Instead, they end up polluting our land and sea, causing long-term damage to the environment. While efforts to move away from single-use plastics are underway, there’s still a long road ahead. In the meantime, the Ministry of Infrastructure Development and Housing (MIDH) is asking everyone to do their part, starting with something simple: hold on to your trash until you can throw it away properly.

 

 

Evondale Moody

 “The volume of garbage that we’re receiving is horrendous, and I think it’s ridiculous. And it basically shows honestly that we have a nasty society. That is just putting it real and we have to do something about it because littering and defacing of our assets, it basically diminish, diminishes us. As a country. We have a beautiful country, but it also compromises the road of safety and it increases the maintenance cost. So our idea is to try and get that out to the public honestly, and to see how best we could get a positive reaction from the general public on these issues.”

 

Every Belizeans is encouraged to take pride in their country and its wealth of natural resources. That means doing their part to ensure that it remains clean and safe for all to enjoy. Britney Gordon for News Five.