Ethical Choices

Throughout my CAS experience I’ve always asked myself a question but I never really took time to reflect on it. My actions are supposed to be having a positive impact on reducing pollution, however, I might not be looking at the right solution. For example, after clean-ups, in most cases the trash was collected all together and then taken by the garbage truck from the municipalidad. But this trash will and up on a landfill and will still have terrible effects on the environment. Although it’s protecting marine wildlife, and the image of Costa Rican beaches, it is still generating pollution. This is the main ethical debate in my project and it is challenging to find a viable solution or answer for it. In some occasions, I have used different colored bags to separate recyclable waste and have donated it to local recycling plants. This could have a bigger impact and reduce pollution more than having everything go to a landfill. This debate helps me reflect on what I’m achieving with my project, and see if I’m actually achieving my goals. In my opinion, by only cleaning up the waste in the beaches and around the local communities I’m reducing pollution, saving wildlife, and preventing negative images to tourists. By taking this and recycling it, I’m going a step further into the process, however, in my opinion both are progress towards my goals, and throughout the past year, the project’s events have really helped in these aspects. An aspect in which the project was very ethical was with approaching the issue through education. With the presentations and engagements with younger grades, I was able to approach the issue and potentially found a way to reduce pollution in the future by informing younger students about the importance of being responsible with waste. This shows how other objectives that I had with the project are highly ethical, and my only debate is what I previously mentioned in terms of the extent of the impact that I have with the project. After reflecting deeper into this question, I can consider that I am actually making a change, and I’ve approached the issue with recycling and without, showing my ability to be flexible with my options and solutions.