Walking in the sand of the beaches of Costa dos Coqueiros, North Coast of Bahia, is like walking on a "cemetery of industrial garbage".

730 pieces of garbage from 48 different countries and five continents were collected on 68 km of beach at Costa dos Coqueiros, north coast of Bahia, Brazil.

In March 2001, 94 pieces of garbage from 26 countries were collected on 31 km of the same coast.

The increase of tourist cruisers passing the Brazilian coast after the 11th of September 2001 could be one explanation for the increase of global garbage on Costa dos Coqueiros.

The stretch between Praia do Forte and Baixio was covered by four walks between the 28th of January und the 8th of February 2002. These walks covered the stretches Praia do Forte (initial point of Linha Verde)-Imbassaí (km 10), Imbassaí-Porto Sauípe (km 26), Porto Sauípe-Subaúma (km 47) and Subaúma-Baixio (km 68).

Theses stretches include the beach villages Diogo between Imbassaí and Porto Sauípe and Masarandupió, spot for nudists, between Porto Sauípe and Subaúma, as well as the tourist complex of Costa do Sauípe between Imbassaí and Porto Sauípe.

On Costa dos Coqueiros, it is possible to walk up to 10 km between the beach villages only seeing sand, ocean and coconut trees.

The global garbage is dumped into the ocean by foreign vessels and taken to the coast by sea currents.

Some of the wrappings are in an advanced state of decay. Totally rusted tin cans and completely dried out plastic, which falls to pieces when touched. Other wrappings, however, arrive at the beach as if they were new. A plastic pack of red jelly from the USA was found in perfect state for consumption. The jelly had arrived at the beach in that very instant.

There were also a lot of wrappings without labels that were not collected. And there were sundry pieces of garbage from Brazil that had also been dumped into the sea and washed ashore by the currents, mainly tanks for diesel motor oil from BR Petrobras, mineral water bottles and margarine boxes from different brands. Brazilian garbage close to the villages had mainly been left on the sand by beach visitors.

In order to facilitate the identification of the garbage, the EAN.UCC (European Article Numbering Association / Uniform Code Council) tables were used.

The number of signalizes was relatively small in 2002 compared to the previous year. A big surprise was the number of plastic mineral water bottles from Taiwan..

Another surprise was the number of fluorescent and incandescent light bulbs that were found mainly on the stretch between Subaúma and Baixio. Some of the light bulbs found were manufactured in Indonesia.

At a distance of less than one kilometer to the north of the tourist complex Costa do Sauípe, a totally rusted barrel was found with Castrol Marine written on its label

The global garbage keeps arriving in alarming quantities.

Says a fisherman of Massarandupió village: "If everything that arrives here was still full, I could open a supermarket. I have already got used to the nudists, but I will never get used to the garbage." It is interesting to note that the nudists came after the garbage.

There are some statements by fishermen, surfers and divers saying that the global garbage has been arriving since the beginning of the 80ies.

The garbage which gets to beach is buried and, depending on the type of material, will stay there for another couple of months or centuries until its total decomposition. In the case of glass bottles, it takes a million years.

The time it takes to bury the garbage depends on the movement of the beach which is determined by a conjunction of different factors. Type of sand, vegetation, inclination, winds and rain are some of them. It also depends on the type of garbage. Size, weight, format and position on the beach have an influence on the time the burying takes

Its difficult to say how many pieces of garbage are buried in the exotic, enchanting and tremendous sands of Costa dos Coqueiros and how many centuries nature will need to decompose them.

On the Costa dos Coqueiros, nature itself has taken over the task of hiding the dirt produced by men.


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