March 10, 2023
A River of Change
Corona is teaming up with 4ocean to clean one of the most polluted rivers in Central America and create a river of change that stops plastic pollution at its source
DID YOU KNOW?
About 80% of all the plastic polluting our oceans comes from “mismanaged waste” on land. Rivers act like superhighways that transport up to 5.5 billion pounds of plastic into our oceans every year.
About 380 million metric tons of plastic are produced each year—roughly the same weight as all of humanity. And that number is only expected to increase in the coming decades. The River of Change initiative from Corona x 4ocean aims to proactively stop plastic pollution at the source, before it enters the ocean or ends up on our shores.
We’ll start with the Rio Motagua—the longest river in Guatemala and one of the most polluted rivers in all of Central America. Spanning two-thirds of the Central American isthmus, the Rio Motagua runs about 300 miles from the remote central highlands of Guatemala to the Gulf of Honduras in the Caribbean Sea.
On its journey to the sea, the Rio Motagua passes Guatemala City, a busy metropolis that’s home to about 3 million people—and the country’s only official garbage dump, or basurero.
The largest garbage dump in Central America, over one third of all the trash produced in Guatemala enters the Guatemala City basurero each year.
But not all of it stays there.
During the rainy season, sewage, industrial runoff, plastic, and other trash from the city’s basurero gets washed into deep ravines that carry noxious and heavily polluted floodwaters to the river.
In rural, inland communities that can’t access the Guatemala City basurero, plastics and other trash are disposed of in unofficial landfills and dumping grounds where heavy winds and rain easily wash it into nearby waterways and tributaries that feed the Rio Motagua.
All of the trash that enters the Rio Motagua is eventually carried to the Gulf of Honduras, a large inlet of the Caribbean Sea. Currents in the gulf deposit trash back on Guatemala’s coast or transport it to shorelines in neighboring countries like Belize and Honduras.
What doesn’t accumulate on the coastlines is carried to the Caribbean Sea, which is home to the world's second largest coral reef system, the Mesoamerican Reef—a critical marine habitat that has supported rich biodiversity and fishing communities from Cancún to Nicaragua for centuries.
During the rainy season, sewage, industrial runoff, plastic, and other trash from the city’s basurero gets washed into deep ravines that carry noxious and heavily polluted floodwaters to the river.
In rural, inland communities that can’t access the Guatemala City basurero, plastics and other trash are disposed of in unofficial landfills and dumping grounds where heavy winds and rain easily wash it into nearby waterways and tributaries that feed the Rio Motagua.
All of the trash that enters the Rio Motagua is eventually carried to the Gulf of Honduras, a large inlet of the Caribbean Sea. Currents in the gulf deposit trash back on Guatemala’s coast or transport it to shorelines in neighboring countries like Belize and Honduras.
What doesn’t accumulate on the coastlines is carried to the Caribbean Sea, which is home to the world's second largest coral reef system, the Mesoamerican Reef—a critical marine habitat that has supported rich biodiversity and fishing communities from Cancún to Nicaragua for centuries.
The state of our oceans is dire. And Corona, the iconic brand and beloved brewery behind the “Find Your Beach” campaign, is stepping up to support the clean ocean movement in a really big way.
Together, 4ocean and Corona will work together to implement upstream solutions that raise awareness about the importance of protecting our oceans and reducing our plastic footprint while also directly addressing plastic pollution in the Rio Motagua.
Our first step is to stop the flow of plastic from the river into the ocean.
In 2023, 4ocean and Corona will begin testing river boom systems in the Rio Motagua. These boom systems are designed to collect plastic flowing downstream before it has a chance to reach the ocean. There are a variety of systems and many configurations that we’ll need to try to determine which setup is most effective.
Even during the testing phase, the boom is expected to prevent hundreds of thousands of pounds of plastic and other debris from entering the ocean each year while creating jobs for people whose lives and livelihoods are directly impacted by plastic pollution in the Rio Motagua. A portion of the plastic we recover will be recycled into new products, like the bracelet you were given, that will fund the River of Change initiative and the ongoing cleanup of the Rio Motagua.
The state of our oceans is dire. And Corona, the iconic brand and beloved brewery behind the “Find Your Beach” campaign, is stepping up to support the clean ocean movement in a really big way.
Together, 4ocean and Corona will work together to implement upstream solutions that raise awareness about the importance of protecting our oceans and reducing our plastic footprint while also directly addressing plastic pollution in the Rio Motagua.
Our first step is to stop the flow of plastic from the river into the ocean.
In 2023, 4ocean and Corona will begin testing river boom systems in the Rio Motagua. These boom systems are designed to collect plastic flowing downstream before it has a chance to reach the ocean. There are a variety of systems and many configurations that we’ll need to try to determine which setup is most effective.
Even during the testing phase, the boom is expected to prevent hundreds of thousands of pounds of plastic and other debris from entering the ocean each year while creating jobs for people whose lives and livelihoods are directly impacted by plastic pollution in the Rio Motagua. A portion of the plastic we recover will be recycled into new products, like the bracelet you were given, that will fund the River of Change initiative and the ongoing cleanup of the Rio Motagua.
The state of our oceans is dire. And Corona, the iconic brand and beloved brewery behind the “Find Your Beach” campaign, is stepping up to support the clean ocean movement in a really big way.
Together, 4ocean and Corona will work together to implement upstream solutions that raise awareness about the importance of protecting our oceans and reducing our plastic footprint while also directly addressing plastic pollution in the Rio Motagua.
Our first step is to stop the flow of plastic from the river into the ocean.
In 2023, 4ocean and Corona will begin testing river boom systems in the Rio Motagua. These boom systems are designed to collect plastic flowing downstream before it has a chance to reach the ocean. There are a variety of systems and many configurations that we’ll need to try to determine which setup is most effective.
Even during the testing phase, the boom is expected to prevent hundreds of thousands of pounds of plastic and other debris from entering the ocean each year while creating jobs for people whose lives and livelihoods are directly impacted by plastic pollution in the Rio Motagua. A portion of the plastic we recover will be recycled into new products, like the bracelet you were given, that will fund the River of Change initiative and the ongoing cleanup of the Rio Motagua..
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