On the Santo Domingo boardwalk, the San Gil Fort accounted for 459,215 pounds, 54.5% of the total, followed by Manresa Breakwater, with 96,035 pounds, and Los Pescadores beach, with 71,910 pounds of collected trash
SANTO DOMINGO. – In 2024, coastal and marine ecosystem restoration efforts collected 842,063 pounds of waste, about 382 tons, according to records from the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources published in the 2025 Environmental Statistics Yearbook of the National Statistics Office (ONE).
In another chart from the same yearbook, with data from Parley for the Oceans, a civil society organization, it records 8,985 tons collected in different days carried out in 2024 on three beaches of the National District: 5,744 in Playa Gringo, 1,681 in Fuerte San Gil and 1,560 in Las Tortugas.
For Playa Gringo, the ministry's chart records 1,990 pounds, less than a ton.
From the riverbeds, the Clean Ocean Foundation, which operates bio-barriers in rivers, streams and ravines of Puerto Plata, reported that every three months it recovers between 2,000 and 2,500 tons of plastic for recycling, in addition to between 2,000 and 3,000 tons of other waste every four or five months, depending on the intensity of the rains.
This was explained by its president, Joan Manuel Bierd Vásquez, to Diario Libre on August 31, 2026, who added that the foundation keeps a daily record. In 2023, the same foundation had reported more than 79 tons of plastic collected with the new bio-barrier system.
The Ministry of Environment reported that the 2026 National Clean-Up Day for Beaches and Riverbanks, "From the Basin to the Sea", collected 342,982.5 pounds, about 155.5 tons, in 110 locations.
Its head, Paíno Henríquez, indicated that some of the waste found on the coasts may originate several kilometers away and arrive through ravines, rivers and other bodies of water.
What it costs
In public spending, waste management received 3.65% of the RD$6,964.41 million executed in 2024 in biodiversity and waste, some RD$254 million, according to the Environmental Statistics Bulletin No. 10 of the ONE and calculations made with that data.
The same bulletin states that the country depends heavily on its natural resources for sectors such as tourism, and Bierd Vásquez warned that waste threatens the coastline and tourism.
The sources measure in tons or pounds, on beaches, riverbanks or waterways, during days or continuously, and the documents consulted do not include a continuous national series of the waste that reaches the sea, so their figures cannot be added together or compared with each other.
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