Ticos (slang for Costa Rican residents) are very proud of their beaches. And why shouldn’t they be? These beaches bring people to Costa Rica from all around the world. Costa Rica has some of the world’s best beaches for surfing, snorkeling, and kayaking. The tourism in this country is booming because us foreigners just can’t get enough of the beauty here.
So why would Costa Rica let one of its most popular beaches look like this?
The Playa Grande is located in the town of Montezuma. Every taxi driver, every student, every stranger on the street had told me that if I was going to visit one beach in Costa Rica, make it a beach in Montezuma. So when I got there and discovered a beach filled with garbage and rubble, I was shocked. I first wondered if the Ticos had conspired together to play a mean trick on me. But the more I asked around, the more I discovered that it was the Ticos who are receiving the preverbal short end of the stick.
This year has brought an extraordinary amount of rainfall to Costa Rica, and this has caused flooding along the Pacific Coast. But what does flooding have to do with garbage ending up on the seashore, you ask? Good question. Turns out that Costa Rica dumps a lot of its garbage out in the ocean (like many other nations). Much of it is dumped in areas where the ocean current spins in a circular motion. This is prime real estate for dumping because the trash will just stay in that area, eternally orbiting. Until there is a storm… A hurricane, or just heavy rains will cause the garbage to be pushed towards the shore. And then, what we thought we wouldn’t see again, washes up on the doorstep of our favorite resort.
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