Using Styrofoam in Ajijic, Lake Chapala, Mexico

Styrofoam is a trademark of Dow Chemical for extruded polystyrene foam currently made for thermal insulation and craft applications.

Styrofoam can be used, for example, under roads and other structures due to freezing and thawing.

This is good.

In the US the word Styrofoam is often used a generic term for expanded polystyrene foam such as disposable coffee cups, coolers and cushioning material in packaging.

This is bad.

Styrofoam can take up to thirty years to break down and, therefore, has become a serious threat to our environment.

Styrofoam is now banned in the US and Canada for non essential use and we might want to think about doing that also in our beautiful Ajijic, Lake Chapala.

There are many things we can do to protect our environment such as conserving water and electricity, using paper or cloth bags for shopping instead of plastic. Both Walmart and Superlake have cloth bags for sale very inexpensively for us to use daily which will reduce our carbon footprint substantially.

There has been talk of recycling in Ajijic, Lake Chapala but to date we have not received further written instructions as how to carry this out. Although there are different colored bins available at Superlake we still are having our garbage picked up unsorted. The exception is that garden cuttings are picked up separately.

We all have to do our part in protecting our environment and even small changes call mean a lot.

We can speak to Superlake, Tony’s Meat Market and Walmart about not using Styrofoam and try to reduce the use of this hazardous material.

Also ask your garbage pickup crew when recycling is going to actually be mandatory.

Another thing we can do is buy water filters instead of thousands of little plastic bottles for our drinking water or buy one large bottle instead of several small ones.

Water filters are available at Walmart.

If we all do something, no matter how small, we will be able to keep our. beautiful Ajijic, Lake Chapala environmentally friendly and green.