Right on point Rob!!! Plastic & Styrofoam products are the bane of our modern existence. Yesterday (Sunday) morning on the short 100-yard long walk on Ixtapa Beach from the public access next to Swim with the Dolphins and the massage shacks I collect nearly a half of a large garbage bag worth of discarded plastic glasses, plastic wrappers, aluminum cans, plastic six-pack rings, Styrofoam cups & plates and dozens of cigarette butts.

So much for your BLUE FLAG CERTIFICATION.

I cannot wait to see the aftermath of the Beach Concert scheduled for this coming Thursday on Playa El Palmar.

Right on, Tim, and a HEARTFELT GRACIAS for helping clean the beach!!

Yes, the concert right in front of the enslaved dolphins will likely generate another ton of plastic refuse, besides causing excruciating torture for the dolphins with their super sensitive hearing. I've tried to get the ecologists and Profepa and Semarnat to make the city move the concert away from the dolphins, but it's hard to get results from folks who only simulate doing their jobs. #PobrePueblo

So much for your BLUE FLAG CERTIFICATION.

I cannot wait to see the aftermath of the Beach Concert scheduled for this coming Thursday on Playa El Palmar.

I think glass banned on beaches is good. It's horrible to step on broken glass.

Yes, obviously it's horrible to step on glass, but my point was that in all my years of living, playing and walking on beaches, only once have I stepped on glass, meaning that for vacationers the possibility of doing so is much more remote. You're more likely to step on a sea urchin or a sharp shell. The point being that one must always watch where one steps.

While broken glass on the beach is a bummer, most folks are responsible. The types of glass containers most folks take to the beach are for foodstuffs or booze. It's simply not that difficult for the so-called Eco-Guardianes to patrol the beaches and warn or fine people for littering instead of standing at the beach entrances harassing pet owners and making people throw their food and drinks away.

Promoting the use of plastic at the beach or anywhere is counterproductive to a sustainable ecologically-friendly society. We have already produced too much plastic. Perhaps you've never seen our waterfront after the first rains of the year. It is disgusting, and many other places around the world are much worse. Plastic IS the problem.

I agree with most of your comments, except the one regarding glass bottles on the beach. If I'm destined to step on a broken bottle there, I'd prefer plastic to glass.

As a lifetime beach-goer I've only stepped on broken glass once, and that was while running to catch a frisbee on the tiny backwater beach called Shell Point in the Florida Panhandle.

Unlike glass, plastic takes decades if not centuries to biodegrade, and the oceans already contain more plastic than fish, so I'll stand by my comments that glass containers should not be banned from the beach. We do not need any more plastic in our oceans, but unfortunately that's where it keeps ending up.

An entertaining read, when translated by Google. It would be interesting to know what the average amount spent per day is, per visitor National vis a vis Foreign.

What has happened over the years is that the relatively affluent middle class Mexicans come here in lesser numbers while the less affluent lower-middle and lower classes come here in greater numbers. Most of Ixtapa's commercial areas have become run down because the tourists who stay in Ixtapa's now almost exclusively todo-incluido hotels don't purchase anything away from the hotel, and in Zihuatanejo the streets are noticeably empty of cars because most tourists are arriving by bus and stay 5 or more to a hotel room, often bringing much of their food with them (which is why they get extra pissed off when the so called Eco-Guardianes take away their glass bottles and styrofoam plates and coolers. I have yet to see anyone fined or even scolded for littering, but don't dare be an affluent pet owner and try to go to the beach because you will quickly be harassed by the city government's Eco-Guardianes. Since glass is much more environmentally friendly than plastic, I find the ban on glass containers at the beach absurd.

So now our tourism officials brag about how the number of warm bodies arriving here are up, ignoring completely their declining purchasing power as if nothing else mattered but MORE PEOPLE. Businesses are dying and closing in both Zihuatanejo and Ixtapa, and our "responsible authorities" have nothing to say on the matter. #PobrePueblo

Does not your post suggest that tourism in Zihua is picking up. If so, that is wonderful. National tourists represent more than 60% of Zihua's annual tourists. We depend upon them. We welcome them, tourist busses included. Sure, it is awkward for a few weeks a year- parking spaces in El Centro are at a premium. Get used to it, it supports our economy. It reflects our local culture. Should you choose to live here, it is pretty easy to get accustomed to the Summer vacation challenges. And, perhaps, to celebrate as Mexicans do.

Abrazos!

lorenzo

WTF??? I have lived here for 16 years and posted this as a note to the snowbirds that it is not all about them.

Abrazos!

lorenzo