Resumo

GARCIA RODRIGUEZ, Lidia; GRACIA, María Amalia; BELLO BALTAZAR, Eduardo  e  ALDASORO MAYA, Elda M.. Social metabolism and ecotourism: the problem of waste in Holbox Island, Quintana Roo, Mexico. Nova scientia [online]. 2018, vol.10, n.20, pp.779-822. ISSN 2007-0705.  https://doi.org/10.21640/ns.v10i20.1401.

The prevailing development model that prioritizes economic growth presents two clear limits to the nature: the recovery cycles of goods and services and the absorption of residues generated by human activities. The metabolism social theorizes about that limitations and, as such, it is useful to analyze the problematic surround of solid waste or residues. This paper resumes this perspective to understand the disposal practices of the greater producers of solid municipal waste in Holbox Island, Q. R., a site of recent ecotourist promotion. Based on a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods which included surveys and semi-structured interviews, here we analyzed the human and material requirements involved in the spatial transformation that tourism industry promotes, its consumptions and disposal practices of solid waste as well as the knowledge and perceptions about them of: hoteliers, restaurateurs, inhabitants, tourists and people worried about the problem of garbage. The results show the high dependence that ecotourism has on the resources and reservoirs of energy, this dependency manifests on the importation of a quantity and type of inputs that complicate their excretion on the island. Few hotels and restaurants -and many fewer inhabitants- look for products that facilitate excretion -the last process of social metabolism- while there are important sectors that are not involved in waste practices, which prevents a better use of garbage -in a space which is complicated by its population dynamics. All of the above questions the ecotourism promoted by the commodification of spaces because the practices observed do not constitute sustainable alternatives in socio-environmental terms and consider almost exclusively the economic factor.

Palavras-chave : ecological economics; ecotourism production; Holbox; solid waste.

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