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Having been to Guatemala, the culture is to throw most trash on the ground. The trash is then washed into the rivers during heavy rains. It's sad to see. The co

Having been to Guatemala, the culture is to throw most trash on the ground. The trash is then washed into the rivers during heavy rains. It's sad to see. The country has a lot of natural beauty, but there is trash everywhere.

latchkey 2y ago
SE Asia is the same. Literally in the culture. The mind boggles.
- raincom 2y ago
  Well, lack of "garbage collection infrastructure" better explains what's going on in SE Asia, India. When there is no such infrastructure, where else people dump?
  - latchkey 2y ago
    Saigon is a massive city and has garbage collection infrastructure, yet people still dump trash into the rivers that run through the cities. It is actual culture to just toss trash onto the streets, into the gutters and into the rivers. I used to live alongside Truong Sa river and watched people dump their trash into it all day long. There is even a govt run group that goes up and down the river all day long picking up trash. I've been following this group for a while now... they do cleanups all the time... https://www.instagram.com/sai_gonxanh/ https://www.instagram.com/sai_gonxanh/
    - Workaccount2 2y ago
      I have worked with people who grew up in Central America and just drop garbage on the ground when done with something. Even if the trash is 20 feet away. It's hard to shake natural habits from your youth, especially if you don't even care that much.
      - latchkey 2y ago
        My experience is that it isn't about not caring. It is that people who have very little (or come from very little) care about different things, like putting food on the table, today. It is survival instinct only. Quality of education goes a long way too. Do they teach sustainability in schools there? Even if they did, how many generations of kids do we have to go through before they teach these things to their kids? There is no concept of a week or a month or 10 years from now. When you're lacking that, you have no care for the future or how your actions today, will affect things down the road. It really was eye opening taking myself out of my nurture and actually living in a place like SE Asia.
- aussieguy1234 2y ago
  I have personally witnessed people in the Philippines who live next to the ocean quite literally taking out the trash from their bins, then tossing it directly into the ocean current to be taken away. No functioning garbage collection service there either.
Octokiddie 2y ago
Any insights into what makes this culturally acceptable?
- readthenotes1 2y ago
  No Ladybird Johnson like figure driving public policy in the 1960s, melding the hippies and government together? The TV was inundated with public service announcements shaming trash throwers in the USA for maybe 15 years. It made a difference. Having seen similar "just throw it on the ground" behavior in India and china, I think that it may be a natural response in a rural culture that needs to be changed once it is in a city and non degrading packaging is used
  - wlesieutre 2y ago
    Even “Don’t mess with Texas” started as an anti-littering campaign in the mid-80’s into the 90’s https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don't_Mess_with_Texas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don't_Mess_with_Texas
    - selimthegrim 2y ago
      The "Walker told me I have litter" mashup/reboot of this is waiting to happen
    - dredmorbius 2y ago
      "Individual responsibility" anti-littering campaigns, most notoriously the 1971 "crying indian" advert, were strongly driven by industries associated with single-use packaging and products which overwhelmingly constituted such pollution. By putting the onus on individual "consumers", the producers were off the hook for responsibility. Create an economy in which there is nothing to throw away, or in which costs of recovery and recycling are built in to the products themselves and effectively incentivise round-trip material flows, and the problem largely solves itself. Market dynamics tend strongly away from such mechanisms. Free-market advocates like to point to the general success of anti-pollution, clean air, clean water, safety, and other similar measures in rich Western countries, without acceding in the least that overwhelmingly such progress has come through courts, legal processes, and social advocacy, rather than market mechanisms. Wealth overwhelmingly has shown that it is self-serving power, as Adam Smith noted nearly 250 years ago. There's a 1967 interview of Ralph Nader by Studs Terkel I've recently run across, and which describes very much what's happening now as it did the circumstances of nearly 60 years ago, though the industries addressed have shifted somewhat. I cannot recommend this highly enough. <https://studsterkel.wfmt.com/programs/ralph-nader-discusses-his-book-unsafe-any-speed https://studsterkel.wfmt.com/programs/ralph-nader-discusses-...> Direct audio: <https://s3.amazonaws.com/wfmt-studs-terkel/published/11364.mp3 https://s3.amazonaws.com/wfmt-studs-terkel/published/11364.m...> (MP3)

latchkey 2y ago

SE Asia is the same. Literally in the culture. The mind boggles.

raincom 2y ago
Well, lack of "garbage collection infrastructure" better explains what's going on in SE Asia, India. When there is no such infrastructure, where else people dump?
- latchkey 2y ago
  Saigon is a massive city and has garbage collection infrastructure, yet people still dump trash into the rivers that run through the cities. It is actual culture to just toss trash onto the streets, into the gutters and into the rivers. I used to live alongside Truong Sa river and watched people dump their trash into it all day long. There is even a govt run group that goes up and down the river all day long picking up trash. I've been following this group for a while now... they do cleanups all the time... https://www.instagram.com/sai_gonxanh/ https://www.instagram.com/sai_gonxanh/
  - Workaccount2 2y ago
    I have worked with people who grew up in Central America and just drop garbage on the ground when done with something. Even if the trash is 20 feet away. It's hard to shake natural habits from your youth, especially if you don't even care that much.
    - latchkey 2y ago
      My experience is that it isn't about not caring. It is that people who have very little (or come from very little) care about different things, like putting food on the table, today. It is survival instinct only. Quality of education goes a long way too. Do they teach sustainability in schools there? Even if they did, how many generations of kids do we have to go through before they teach these things to their kids? There is no concept of a week or a month or 10 years from now. When you're lacking that, you have no care for the future or how your actions today, will affect things down the road. It really was eye opening taking myself out of my nurture and actually living in a place like SE Asia.
aussieguy1234 2y ago
I have personally witnessed people in the Philippines who live next to the ocean quite literally taking out the trash from their bins, then tossing it directly into the ocean current to be taken away. No functioning garbage collection service there either.

Octokiddie 2y ago

Any insights into what makes this culturally acceptable?

readthenotes1 2y ago
No Ladybird Johnson like figure driving public policy in the 1960s, melding the hippies and government together? The TV was inundated with public service announcements shaming trash throwers in the USA for maybe 15 years. It made a difference. Having seen similar "just throw it on the ground" behavior in India and china, I think that it may be a natural response in a rural culture that needs to be changed once it is in a city and non degrading packaging is used
- wlesieutre 2y ago
  Even “Don’t mess with Texas” started as an anti-littering campaign in the mid-80’s into the 90’s https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don't_Mess_with_Texas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don't_Mess_with_Texas
  - selimthegrim 2y ago
    The "Walker told me I have litter" mashup/reboot of this is waiting to happen
  - dredmorbius 2y ago
    "Individual responsibility" anti-littering campaigns, most notoriously the 1971 "crying indian" advert, were strongly driven by industries associated with single-use packaging and products which overwhelmingly constituted such pollution. By putting the onus on individual "consumers", the producers were off the hook for responsibility. Create an economy in which there is nothing to throw away, or in which costs of recovery and recycling are built in to the products themselves and effectively incentivise round-trip material flows, and the problem largely solves itself. Market dynamics tend strongly away from such mechanisms. Free-market advocates like to point to the general success of anti-pollution, clean air, clean water, safety, and other similar measures in rich Western countries, without acceding in the least that overwhelmingly such progress has come through courts, legal processes, and social advocacy, rather than market mechanisms. Wealth overwhelmingly has shown that it is self-serving power, as Adam Smith noted nearly 250 years ago. There's a 1967 interview of Ralph Nader by Studs Terkel I've recently run across, and which describes very much what's happening now as it did the circumstances of nearly 60 years ago, though the industries addressed have shifted somewhat. I cannot recommend this highly enough. <https://studsterkel.wfmt.com/programs/ralph-nader-discusses-his-book-unsafe-any-speed https://studsterkel.wfmt.com/programs/ralph-nader-discusses-...> Direct audio: <https://s3.amazonaws.com/wfmt-studs-terkel/published/11364.mp3 https://s3.amazonaws.com/wfmt-studs-terkel/published/11364.m...> (MP3)