Every year, a large amount of plastic is dumped into rivers and oceans. In Guatemala, the Dutch NGO The Ocean Cleanup has set itself the task of trapping thousands of tons of plastic in rivers using a metal fence so that it does not end up in the Caribbean Sea.

In Guatemala, large amounts of plastic are washed into the sea during the rainy season. Boyan Slat, Director and Founder of The Cleanup Ocean, explains that the metal barrier captures all the waste that spills into the river. The accumulated waste is then extracted when the water level drops.

The fence will be installed in the municipality of Chinautla, on the Las Vacas River, a tributary of the Motagua River that flows into the Gulf of Honduras. According to the Dutch NGO, the waste that ends up in this river come mainly from a landfill in Guatemala City. These make Motagua one of the most polluted waterways in the world.

Note that the NGO aims to treat waste in the 1,000 most polluting rivers in the world. Currently, it leads several plastic recovery projects around the world. To find out more, find out why plastic is one of the biggest scourges on the planet.