Cleaning the Macao Beach by Princess Hotels Punta Cana
On Friday the 22nd of March, in commemoration of World Water Day and accepting the #Basurachallenge global challenge, we cleaned the Macao Beach in the Dominican Republic. Princess Hotels Punta Cana went to one of the best known free access beaches of the country: Macao Beach. The beach cleaning is part of our social project and environment commitment Princess and You 360º.
The Macao Beach is approximately 20 minutes away from the hotels and has free access. It is well known to the tourists because on this beach there are many excursions such as buggies, quads, horseback riding… Furthermore, you can practice sports such as surfing. A semi virgin beach that has small local fish restaurants, and is surrounded by native vegetation.
How was the cleaning of the Macao Beach?
We arrived at 13:00 with 60 volunteers from the hotels:
The selected place was in a lagoon a few meters from the sandy beach, located at the end of the beach and surrounded by vegetation, behind the local restaurants. We were equipped with machetes, rakes, gloves and garbage bags. We were busy cleaning the lagoon more than 2 hours. We collected more than 120 garbage bags. Of course, when we finished we hired a garbage truck to make sure that all the bags went to the right place.
The main garbage collected was plastic waste, glass bottles and food containers – such as cans, boxes trays etc. – These materials would have taken hundreds of thousand of years to degrade. It could only dirty the environment, contaminate the water and the nature around the beach.
We hope that the local business and security forces that watch the beach, share with us the importance of keeping the environment clean. During the cleaning, some workers from the nearby restaurants, fishermen and even a soldier, came to us with curiosity to see what we were doing. They were astonished at the amount of garbage we had collected. At the end of the day, all the trash is ours, it belongs to everyone and even although we are part of the problem, we can also be part of the solution!
What is the Princess Hotels commitment?
It’s important to remember that all Princess Hotels in the Dominican Republic, follow rigorous waste management protocols, with our Princess and You 360º sustainability Caribbean programme. In which we are committed to the environment and our surrounding community. The collaboration with our clients is fundamental for this purpose, as it is with the correct disposal of garbage in the cubes, which we have marked and separated depending on the waste material.
This activity not only helps the community but all the participants learned the lesson. This isn’t the first time that Princess Hotels participate in the cleaning beaches, but it’s the first time that we faced a challenge with so much accumulated garbage from over the years. We could see clearly the damage caused to the environment by the lack of proper handling of the waste. This was a clandestine dump, and only a few meters from the beach with a fresh water source. Of course, it was a practical awareness lesson and a message that we will all take to our homes.
Categories: Caribbean, Punta Cana
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