Guatemala`s Plastic Ban

Guatemalan Landscape I (Painting by Carin Steen)

n the fisrt day of 2019's Global Climate Strikes, Guatemala’s government announced it will ban all single-use plastic bags and disposable utensils. The country will have two years to find alternatives for plastic cups and straws.

Great news! But is it?

Everyone who lives in Guatemala has been stuck at least one behind one of those (in)famous chicken busses and knows about its big black clouds of exhaustion fumes. Mining companies dump their waste wherever they bloody like it.  The gorgeous Lake Atitlan is an open sewer. The pollution of the Motagua River not only poses a serious risk to public health, but is also destroying the Mesoamerican Reef. So is a plastic ban really going to make a difference?



The problem is that there are too many problems.



One of them is people´s attitude. Of course children learn at school where trash should go and to take care of the environment. But it`s a sort of a theoretical knowledge that isn`t often applied. Or thought through. Example: Last May I was painting a mural at a school while the children celebrated National Tree Day. Besides the regular national anthem, prayer and many speeches (including a looong one by the director about all the obstacles she had overcome in order to get the school some computers), the celebration mainly consisted of each grade presenting a huge tree made of paper. Made of PAPER!!! And to make matters worse, while the festivities were going on, some workmen were cutting down a big tree on the schoolyard. And no one even blinked.
People know. But people don´t act.


Another problem. Trash collection. In Antigua Guatemala, trash collection is a private affair. You pay one of the “companies” to dispose of your trash. On specific days guys knock on your door and haul your crap to a lorry from which the trash is dumped at the municipal garbage heap. Or so you hope. Who checks where the trash really goes? Not that I doubt those guys, the thing is, there is just no control. As there is no control of who pays for garbage collection and who doesn´t. In the small town I used to live there were plenty of people who didn´t and dumped their trash at the creek. Or behind my house. But to be fair, in the town I used to live in Honduras, garbage collection was serviced by the municipality, there was no way not to pay, but people still threw their trash on the streets anyway. 

Guatemalan Landscape II (Painting by Carin Steen)

Of course there wouldn’t be as much trash if there wasn`t so much single-use plastic. And the poorer people are, ironically enough, the more plastic. If you walk into any tiny neighbourhood store, the amount of plastic packaging is simply appalling. Besides some eggs, tomatoes and onions, everything else is covered in plastic and most of it individually wrapped. Because people are poor. It is less money (not cheaper) to buy a sachet of shampoo than a whole bottle (and no, those fantastic packaging-free shampoo tablets are NOT widely available to the poor!).  Cookies, drinks, oil, sauces, chips, candy, everything comes in mini amounts with maxi packaging, so you think you get something worth your money. While wat you really do is buying trash, of course. But hat argument doesn’t fly when you only have a few cents in your pocket, just enough to buy some crisps and a soda. 


For years, in my work with kids in Central America, I’ve addressed the trash problem in any possible way I could think of but it seems to be a lost fight. Garbage slogans and songs got forgotten, bins got stolen, signs got ruined and pollution continued. And I still don`t know why. Of course, if you go to small mountain villages, it wasn`t all too long ago that trash wasn`t a problem at all. You threw everything, all organic, out through the window and it got taken care of by dogs, pigs, chickens or bugs. The transformation from pure organic waste to an avalanche of single-use plastic went much faster than the disposal of it, not to mention recycling.



Funnily enough, if you ask a kid, or anyone, for that matter, whether she/he prefers a clean environment over a littered one, the answer is always yes. But oh so little is being done about it. Although, I must say I was thrilled to see that this year some schools in Central America instead of marching for Independent Day, cleaned their community or planted trees. Isn’t taking care of your country real patriotism? Please people keep that in mind next Semana Santa when you flock to coast and rivers and leave literally tons of your CRAP on shores and beaches! Not fun at all! And you know what, it can be done! Spending much time on the beach in Northern Spain this summer, I’m baffled every time I find the beach squeaky clean in the early mornings, knowing that just hours earlier hundreds of people spent their day there.  Every morning. It CAN be done! Really, not difficult at all.



In August last year, Antigua Guatemala announced its new law to prohibit single-use plastic, a law that went in effect on February 10. As much as I applauded it, I was very sceptical. It’s a great initiative, but to see it implemented is another thing. There`s also a law that forbids animal abuse.  And one that says you can`t kill people, but that one isn´t taken very seriously either. But I must say, I have actually seen quite a difference.


At the market the regular bags were quickly replaced by biodegradable ones. That is a step forward, although of course not a solution. By the way, I strongly mistrust some of those bags that look just the same to me, but with an “ECO” label printed on them. Is there any control out there? But now that the plastic ban will be implemented nationwide, things can only approve. Plastic won´t be able to be imported from other towns any longer and hopefully there will be more variety in alternative packaging as well as better prices. People are already coming up with solutions that are probably as ancient as the world anyway: French fries in a cabbage leaf, cheese wrapped in banana leaves and a return of brown Kraft paper. Nothing new under the sun.



I thought that the plastic ban would mostly be applied in the visible tourist industry in central Antigua. But to my surprise and delight, it has trickled through all layers of society and now even in the smallest shops you don`t get a bag any more. Want some tortillas? Bring a napkin. Eggs? Basket. You know, just like it used to be not so very long ago.  And if your walk around in my neighbourhood and see the amount of trash scattered around, you realise this could really have an impact.



But enough talk. Let`s try to make some real changes. Forget for now about reusing and recycling. Let`s start with some serious reducing. Deal?

Guatemalan Landscape III (Painting by Carin Steen)

Half-Countryside-ness

There’s this word in Dutch that often pops up in my head and that I love: halflandelijkheid. It means something like “half-countrysideness” and refers, quite obviously, to places in between urban and rural areas. The word was invented by the poet Simon Vestdijk who used it in his poem Zelfkant (“Self-Side) in 1931. Badly translated, the first strophe goes something like this:

What I love most is half-countrysideness:
Where woozy meadow winds play with clotheslines
Full of laundry; industrial sites where Between miserable grass a lorry rides.

(Ik houd het meest van de halfland'lijkheid:
Van vage weidewinden die met lijnen
Vol waschgoed spelen; van fabrieksterreinen
Waar tusschen arm'lijk gras de lorrie rijdt.)

A lifetime ago, when I was a young art student who knew everything about everything, we got the assignment to “do something” with the theme of half-countrysideness. Even then I was already intrigued by this word and its implication. I set off for an abandoned train depot near my house, the Oostelijk Havengebied in Amsterdam, for those in the know, and spent many happy hours among forgotten railway carriages covered in rust and graffiti. The rails where overgrown with grass, the environment quiet and still despite the short distance from grand central station. I made sketches, I painted and took many pictures. And in the end, I burned everything in a self-invented ceremony to honour the half-countrysideness. Or something like it. I can’t remember exactly except that at the time I thought it was pretty cool and sophisticated. The place doesn’t exist anymore. Humans have won and turned one of the last spots of nothingness in the city into a fancy neighbourhood.

A couple of days ago the weather here in the north of Spain was too miserable to go to the beach but not miserable enough to stay in. A perfect day to explore the trail I suspected to exist leading from my small village to the nearest town. I did find the trail and it was quite nice. There were some goats grazing around freely as well as a horse and a few cows minding their own business, as was I. However, when I turned around a corner of some blackberry bushes, I found a big fat bull lying right in the middle of the trail. The bull was lazily chewing some grass and seemed very mellow. I guess I could have walked around him without a fuzz but I’ve seen a few too many bull-related incidents on TV lately (quite normal in Spain, where people run with bills for fun), so I decided to calmly retrace my steps. Which led me to an area just outside of Llanes that I hadn’t explored yet. It was a perfect example of “halflandelijkheid” where human interventions had invaded the countryside but where pure neglect and force of nature had given the latter the upper hand.

I love those areas that are neither inhabited nor completely forgotten, with small human interventions that seem to get along great with the plants and bugs that consider the space theirs. Which made me ponder half-countrysideness in Guatemala and Honduras and realized there’s very little of it. It’s countryside OR urbanization, even on the edges of towns where urbanizations stops when there is absolutely no physical way to build yet another level or expansion to the existing shacks. It made me think that half-countrysideness is, rather than a sign of deterioration, a bit of a luxury, available only to those who can afford to forget or neglect. And that makes me end this entry with the depressing realisation that yes, everywhere in the world and for whatever reason, half-countrysideness is in danger of extinction. What a shame.

Talking about the Weather

Asturias beach in September

Guatemala is the land of eternal spring, they say. And yup, besides the occasional downpour, the weather is pretty cool. In the Antigua area the days are filled with sunshine that might get a bit too much around noon but is otherwise reminiscent of spring in bloom. The nights cool off substantially and the rainy season is obviously (much!) wetter than the dry period, but other than that the weather is pretty constant. No need for different summer or winter wardrobes, an extra layer when cold will do. There’s also little difference between summer and winter time. In the summer, dusk starts around 6.40pm and at 7pm it’s pitch dark. In the winter that’s 6pm. So, all in all (not taken in account the noticeable effects of climate change), life just calmly goes on without dramatic changes between seasons. That feeling of loss at the end of summer… The falling of leaves and shortening of days that remind you that all will come to an end. Nope, not in Guatemala. Day is day and night is night. Green leaves and flowers year-round. You can harvest lettuce from your own garden any month of the year. Day after day is pretty much the same and that does bring a sense of calm. It also made me always forget everybody’s birthday back home because I strongly associate those with different seasons. No wonder I’d forget my mother’s birthday in December while drinking coffee on my rooftop terrace dressed in shorts and a tank top. (But that was before Facebook started to remind us of our loved ones’ B-days, thank you very much.)

Spanish Bougainvillea

After more than two decades in Central America I just settled in the North of Spain (which is very different from the rest of Spain, climate-wise and all) and one of the most fantastic things I’ve experienced in the last two months is SUMMER!!!!! I had totally forgotten how absolutely amazingly wonderful real summers are! And I mean REAL summers, of course, that start its days with crisp blue skies and corn yellow sunshine. Summer days that seem to last forever and allow you to go to the beach in the EVENING!!! Not a cooling down, dusky sort of evening, but sitting on the beach at 9pm with your feet in the ocean and an ice-cream in your hand kind of evening! Swimming in the sunset at 10pm!!! Loving it!!!

But that is all coming to an end. Almost. Summer hasn’t made up its mind yet. Every time you think it’s over and done with, summer comes back with a few splendid days. The ocean is still pretty warm and as long as you stay out of the shade, you can easily pretend that nothing has changed. But as soon as you enter the shade, the chill creeps into your bones, Even on the beach, the gentle sun might caress your face, but a chilly draft bites your butt. And then the smells… Sun warmed walls and wafts of ripe fruit no longer there… The not unpleasant smell of wet, rotting leaves has already taken over the smell of sunscreen. Yellowing leaves and reddening apples announce fall. And yes, there is that sense of loss… I cherish every ray of sunshine; I spend every minute I can outdoors and still go to the beach for my daily swim. I soak up the very last bit of summer, unwilling to let go. I really, really don’t want summer to end.


But to be honest, I’m actually also very much looking forward to what autumn has to bring and can’t wait for it to start!