Keeping it Clean

TrashThe inhabitants of Paradise seem to have a problem keeping their environment clean. Many do not use bins to discard plastic goblets, bottles or other food  containers. I have seen some shocking scenes such as when passengers of a car in front of ours wound down their window and promptly threw out a plastic bottle. In our street, passengers of passing cars often throw out their trash in the flower beds on either side of the road. One incident was the limit when a group of youngsters returning from a day out at the seaside stopped their vehicle in front of our home and decided to empty trash and sand into the flower bed. Others were using the entrance lane to a religious convent as a smoking parlour and littering the lane with cigarette butts and empty beer cans. Worse, local inhabitants were taking their dogs into the same entrance lane to the church and allowing the animal’s morning constitution. Not very pleasant for devotees attending the church. How often do we see illegal dumping on people’s land with eyesores like old refrigerators and construction materials.

garbage truckSome Municipalities are not much better when you see the way that garbage is collected. They use open trucks which are not suitable for the job. Bins are manually emptied into the backs of trucks which are open and rubbish is often blown back on the road by the wind. After the passage of these refuse trucks the roads and lanes often look worse. Plainly an inefficient and unhygienic method of garbage collection.

poubelle-recyclageWhat do you do with this mindset? All the publicity campaigns do not seem to motivate the public. So how will the long-term recycling project evolve when most lack interest or just do not care. Can you imagine, today, requesting the public to sort trash into separate lots for recycling purposes. How can you enforce a nation-wide recycling system when most will not respect trash sorting. It will probably take a very long time to educate the public and set-up a recycling collection system similar to the ones already working in Europe. In the meantime Paradise is getting trashed.

0 thoughts on “Keeping it Clean”

  1. I came across something similar when I was in Greece. You would pull into a lay by and look out over a spectacular view, then look down and find the lay by had been used as a garbage dump. Happened on more than one occasion, so I guess it was wide spread.

  2. Laws are here already, though not respected. Authorities wait for people to report to take concrete actions.
    I feel weird when I dispose by plastic waste in the bin at Shoprite – as if am the only one caring about the environment. Most the time the bin is empty.

  3. It is a sad reality that some people still dump wherever they want (Not in their yard, I hope, else they are dumb themselves). Sometimes, I prefer to keep the dirty things in the car until I spot a bin somewhere. Example cans (no! not the beer ones! Remember, no drink n drive) and plastic bags.

    It mostly has to do with education since a very young age. However, it might also be difficult to change mentality of certain people and that’s why authorities need to come into play.

    Fining Rs10,000 to someone will most probably make him think twice the next time he hold a bit of trash in his hands.

    However, it is also true to say that there’s a lack of bins in parts of the island. It is astonishing to see how certain areas of port louis have no bins. Dhaneesha has blogged on this earlier but her blog is down. My fault lol.

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