This beautiful picture, taken by the brilliant photojournalist Maggie Steber, shows kids playing soccer in the middle of Port-au-Prince in the days just following the 2010 earthquake. I like it especially because it reminds me of the soccer-playing street kids who...

Dream Haiti. This is a tiny tableau (4.5” x 3”) that I bought in 1987. It shows the downtown square of a dream provincial city (probably modeled on Gonaïves). On the far right, dream municipal water flows from municipal pipes; in the foreground, dream...
Plastic Problems

Plastic Problems

I try not to be tender about Haiti but I’m feeling a little tender and defensive now, as I think about how hard it would be — how hard it is — to regulate environmental protection there, and why. As I noted in my last post, the Martelly government has banned the sale and distribution and importation and manufacture of plastic containers and bags as of October 1. However, as astute Associated Press reporter Trenton Daniels noted in a recent dispatch from Port-au-Prince, Haitians on the ground are happily ignoring the ban and selling bags and using plastic food containers just as if no ban had ever been announced.

In Port-au-Prince, a pile of plastic bottles waits for a pick-up that never comes

Plastic and other pollution near the wharf in Les Cayes, Haiti
Banning plastic containers in Haiti

Banning plastic containers in Haiti

In Haiti, plastic pollution is rampant. On October 1, the Martelly government says it will begin enforcing a new ban on the manufacture, use, and importation of plastic and foam containers, including food carry-out containers and the black plastic bags that have become ubiquitous in the country.