Hotels Keep Dumping Toxic Wastes in Mexico’s Caribbean Shores

Several Mexican hotels and recreational centers along the Caribbean shoreline have been tossing toxic wastes into pre-Hispanic ruins and in the Sian Ka´an Biosphere Reserve, a situation that has driven environmentalists and civil officials in Tulum to order the lockdown of some hotels and companies.

Greenpeace members and several community organizations have demanded authorities to enforce a ban on local hotels that dump solid wastes and other residuals in some of the most cherished sites.

These lodgings –most of them spotted in the breach area- are doing a lot of harm to the nearby mangrove thickets and are threatening to play havoc with Mayan archeological sites built in the 4th century.

Environmental groups insist the wastes are also posing as major menace to the local flora and wildlife, chiefly in the Sian Ka´an Biosphere Reserve, in the south of Tulum.

A local official told Caribbean News Digital recently that the approval of the Partial Development Plan for the region gave chains the green light to build over 80 hotels on the premises, some of them in blatant violation of sanitary regulations.

Even though these facilities abide by a low occupancy standard and none of them exceed 50 rooms, many of the establishments are not outfitted with cesspools and other services, and their wastes eventually leak into the aquifer, the foreshores and the mangroves.