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Peru: Hotels in Cusco's Valle Sagrado develop environment-friendly strategies

LivinginPeru.com
Isabel Guerra

Hotel administrators in the Sacred Valley of the Incas have developed a project to make about five thousand paper bags in order to decrease the excessive use of plastic bags, which might represent an environmental threat.

Edwin Gonzalez, president of the Association of Hotels and Restaurants, said that this initiative was born during the "Campaign for Corporate Social Responsibility," organized for the third year by hotels and inns in Cusco.

Gonzalez pointed out that plastic bags last for hundreds of years before turning into small toxic little particles; he warned that there is an excessive increase of plastic bags in the Sacred Valley and Cusco, which are mostly dumped into rivers and fields, polluting them.

"This idea is still a project: we need a working plan. But we will do our best to implement it," he said.

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# Cesar says :
21 October, 2009 [ 12:13 ]

Really good to see this kind of proposal from the hotels.

# Mike says :
21 October, 2009 [ 13:43 ]

How will they make the paper bags? Cut down the few remaining trees in the valley? 5000 paper bags could be used up and in the garbage in a weekend. I agree that something should be done about pollution in the valley, but this is almost nothing. It's just a feel good story.
How about an aggressive Anti-pollution education program? (The crying indian in the US) How about collecting the used plastic bags and weaving a more durable/collectable bag from them - its being done in other places with great success.
There are many more options but 5000 paper bags (or 50,000 for that matter) is nothing more than a headline!

# Indian with tear in eye says :
22 October, 2009 [ 07:29 ]

the sacred river of the Incas Wilka Mayu  Urubamba river is full of all kinds of garbage,  cant drink the water, cant eat the fish, cant swimm in the sacred river.
education and responcable actions by the municaplatiys and hotels is the only way to combat this travisty
all toursts visiting machu picchu see hours of garbage out thier windows, as the ride the train to machu picchu
from the Raya on down large n small towns dump tons,, ever day into the river, raw sewarge and garbage  when the manucaplatiys have acess to large amounts of money for this   
They show the toursts their garbage as the are proud of it
2 days ago a large 5 star Hotel construction The Librador Hotel chain in the Valley dumped 4 dumptrucks full of constrution garbage in the middel of a field going down to the valley right in view of the road in a frequent tour bus stop senic over view of Chicon. 
Now the paper bag deal is making big news, they are dumping truck loads of plastic and rubble into the beautiful fields that all torust see.
All can see this dump as you arrive to the sacred valley via cusco chinchero  into the first switchback curve coming down from Mars.  Maybe they can use the paper bags to cover it over.

# Indian with tear in eye says :
23 October, 2009 [ 07:23 ]

Today passing from Maras I saw there were 4 more dump tuck loads dumped yesterday in same place. 
The comunity did not give permission, it is not a dump area and  it is in the direct view of all tourist that are on the Sacred Valle tour   this is a frequent stop for taking photos of magestic chicon, now is full of Hotel Libaradors Construction Garbage.
I do indeed hope that the mangement of the Libarador Hotel Chain will be informed that the construcion boss of their New 5 star hotel in Urubamba is dumping garbage for all tourist to see,  and Clean it up!!!!¡¡¡

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