**5.2 The issues of plastic waste and microplastics in Port-au-Prince**

According to the World Bank (2019) [85], in the Caribbean and elsewhere in the world, marine pollution is linked to poor waste management on land: illegal dumping, open burning or dumping of waste in streams. In addition, the quantity of plastics reaches a concentration of 200,000 pieces of debris per square kilometer in the northeast of the Caribbean. In this region of the world, about 85% of wastewater is discharged into the ocean without having been previously treated; and, in island countries more particularly - Bahamas, Greater Antilles (Cuba, Dominican Republic, Haiti, Jamaica and Puerto Rico) and Lesser Antilles - approximately 52% of households are not connected to sewers. However, 14 Caribbean countries (more than a third) have banned single-use plastic bags and / or styrofoam containers (**Figure 7**).

In Haiti, the government issued on August 9, 2012, a decree prohibiting the production, import, marketing, and use, in any form whatsoever, of polyethylene bags and expanded polystyrene objects (PSE or PS or Styrofoam) for single food

use, such as trays, trays, bottles, sachets, cups and plates. On July 10, 2013, a second decree was issued to ban once again "the importation, production or sale of expanded polystyrene articles for food use". In support of the second decree, the ministries of the Environment, Justice and Public Security, Trade, and Industry as well as Economy and Finance announced in a note published in January 2018 that brigade's specialists will be deployed on the territory to force the application of the said decree.

To better approach the problem of plastic and microplastic waste management in Port-au-Prince, it is important to look at the waste management system. In Haiti, the National Solid Waste Management Service (*Service National de Gestion des Résidus Solides* (SNGRS)). This public institution has the status of an autonomous body, and an authority which extends over the entire territory of the country.

In the agglomeration of Port-au-Prince, there is a single space that has been officially designated to receive any type of waste. Due to the insufficient capacity of public actors to collect all waste, it ends up in different types of space according to different logics [86]. The uncontrolled presence of waste induces a certain number of potential nuisances. It is therefore necessary to consider the health risk classically associated with waste [87], as a vector of pathology and contamination of natural resources [86]. Beyond the environmental dangers generated by chemical substances and pathogenic microorganisms present in solid waste, the latter not only obstruct traffic routes, but are also a source of flooding by blocking irrigation canals and gullies (**Figure 8**).

Port-au-Prince's marine ecosystem is liable to suffer locally profoundly serious damages caused by the direct discharge of urban effluents [88]. Indeed, the discharge of contaminants in natural ecosystems, by example water bodies pose a significant concern to water quality and to the health of aquatic organism because of not only the varied types of pollutants that impact these systems, also because of the many ways pollutants can affect the health of aquatic organism [89].

With the tropical temperature of Haiti and the average daily duration (12 hours / day), the plastics present in the urban water canals could degrade more quickly by generating microplastics. Their discharge in the bay of Port-au-Prince exposes this ecosystem to environmental dangers [90], that of pollutants contained in wastewater, and that of climatic hazards, in particular the acidification of the oceans. The stress of benthic organisms (coral reefs, bivalves) should then be observed and monitored.

#### **Figure 8.**

*Uncontrolled presence of waste in public spaces in Port-au-Prince. (left illustration - unauthorized deposit of household waste along a road [86]. Right illustration - unauthorized deposit of PSE or PS or Styrofoam waste in the largest urban water collector in Port-au-Prince).*

*Microplastics and Environmental Health: Assessing Environmental Hazards in Haiti DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.98371*
