Turtle vs. plastic bag

From EcoOcean:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-paP7rjscwo

Mexico City bans use of plastic bags. Could the Riviera Maya?

From an article by Nacha Cattan posted on The News:

Mexico City’s Assembly on Tuesday passed a ban on all plastic bags at grocery stores and supermarkets.

The ban will go into effect in one year, giving the plastic industry time to adopt new technology – such as plastics made of corn that would disintegrate within weeks – the law’s sponsors said.

“This is an environmental achievement without precedent in Mexico,” said Leonardo Alvarez Romo, a Green Party lawmaker and sponsor of the bill. “This should serve as an example for other states as well as the federal government.”

Modeled after bans in China and San Francisco, the restriction states: “No commercial establishment may give away a plastic bag for transporting, handling or packaging their products.”

The strict law applies to all stores, including dry cleaners, which will no longer be able to return clothing in plastic covers, said Assemblyman Xiuh Tenorio, another sponsor of the bill. Store owners who give away plastic bags for free risk arrest of up to 36 hours or fines of as much as 1 million pesos. The only exceptions will be granted for sanitation purposes.

Currently, Mexico City and the metropolitan area use 20 million bags per day, each of which takes hundreds of years to decompose, Alvarez Romo said.

Plastice bags create problems in the ocean.

Watch your plastic (bags and bottles, that is, not the credit card)

A common site along the Mexican Caribbean when snorkeling, diving, or just swimming on the surface. Photo by Gavin Parsons, Greenpeace, from the Marine Photobank.

Though Charles Moore’s presentation focuses on the Pacific Ocean, plastic punctuates beaches throughout the Caribbean.

Traveller’s crash course on tipping

From an article by Ron Pradinuk in the Winnipeg Free Press:

Confusion regarding tipping at all-inclusive resorts, as well as in countries around the world, leads to numerous questions to me on a regular basis from travellers. There is no simple answer, as cultures and customs vary from country to country. Not long ago, and still in some all-inclusive properties, staff could be fired for accepting a tip.

Today, that has changed, for the most part. In many European countries, a tip is automatically added. Some countries expect tips even though there is no place to add it onto the credit cards, yet the culture of other countries is such that they genuinely do not expect to receive anything more for exemplary service. Interestingly, even the currency you should tip in varies. Some, particularly Mexico and some of the Caribbean countries, prefer U.S. dollars, while other regions prefer to see tips only in their local currency.

Q. Should we be tipping at an all-inclusive resort, since presumably it is included, and does the staff actually get any additional “tip” dollars from my booking?

A. I had this question last year and was not able to give a definitive answer on the second part of your question. However, I have since been able to find out what some properties do for their staffs in this regard.

Most of the workers at many of the resorts in Mexico do not make much more than $3 to $4 a day.

At one of the high-end resorts I researched, they do, in fact, process tips to the staff on a scale depending upon the job performed. A bellboy might get an additional $1.50 for each room they take luggage to and from.

Waiters will get a similar amount for each table they serve. The maids are on a different scale, as are the other workers.

At the end of it all, they don’t make a lot of money and although the cost of living is certainly less than it is here, to have any decent standard of life, what they earn from their hospitality jobs is still not all that great.

It is perhaps the reason you now see more and more people tipping the person who brings beverages to those lying on the beach or beside the pool. Or the person who carries your bags for you. Or the maid, by way of a small leave-behind.