Visiting villages and towns in Burkina Faso, Mali, and Senegal, I was struck by the affluence/trash link. The more remote the village, usually the less the trash because they make their own utensils out of wood, calabash gourds, and earthenware. They use everything.
The more contact a village has with markets, the more trash they accumulate, and there is no trash disposal. Cheap black plastic bags and other waste ends up along the road, or in makeshift pits out of which clay from bricks has been cut. Grazing animals eat it and become sickened. Children play in potentially hazardous waste, and the pristine nature of the countryside is eroded. While we can pack all our trash out to appropriate disposal, how do we change what’s happening in developing countries? It’s not like we can tell them to put it in a wastebasket or something. The only chance to deal with it is to stop it at the source, and pressure manufacturers to make only biodegradable products. The garbage man is NOT coming this week!
The more contact a village has with markets, the more trash they accumulate, and there is no trash disposal. Cheap black plastic bags and other waste ends up along the road, or in makeshift pits out of which clay from bricks has been cut. Grazing animals eat it and become sickened. Children play in potentially hazardous waste, and the pristine nature of the countryside is eroded. While we can pack all our trash out to appropriate disposal, how do we change what’s happening in developing countries? It’s not like we can tell them to put it in a wastebasket or something. The only chance to deal with it is to stop it at the source, and pressure manufacturers to make only biodegradable products. The garbage man is NOT coming this week!
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