From the stories here, I can't imagine my experience is as bad but I was very surprised at the amount of roadside rubbish in Kosovo. Stop to take a photo of the beautiful mountains and you're wading through plastic bags.

__________________
Paul "Every county of England, every country of Europe and every (part of every inhabited) continent of the Earth" 94% done! What's left? Central America, East, Central and West Africa, Australia & New Zealand

Perhaps the manufacturers of all those plastic bottles and containers might launch a promotional campaign against littering and fund recycling efforts.

Maybe they do already, but the programs are ineffective, not big enough, corrupt, or all of the above.

If recycling centers were established and could be run profitably I am sure more people would collect and sell plastic to the recycle centers.

The question becomes, is recycling of plastic profitable? The folks that live and work in and around the large landfills (dumps) must be profiting somehow.

Anti littering campaigns and signs are beginning to appear along the Panamericana and on major highways throughout Mexico, Central and South America. Enforcement is not happening....

Hugh fines are threatened in the United States and Canada for littering with enforcement, and this seems to have some effect.

As an example, over landers reading here could send suggestions that might begin to solve the problem to corporate CEOs who bottle/wrap their products in plastic.

I imagine hugh steel coca cola bottle shaped and painted containers used to collect plastic . This would serve as product promotion and give corporations a greener image. The bottles could have trap door bottoms and could be lifted and opened over available dump trucks for transport to established recycle centers. What we need are creative ideas that would enable people to profit from participating in the recycle process.

For that matter the dump trucks could sport product advertising and be donated by the corporations selling products in plastic bottles/containers.

I don't really like the idea of a horizon featuring hugh coca cola bottle collecting points, but that might be better than seeing the raw windblown litter. I remember in Spain the signs shaped like big black bulls on hill tops along major highways - advertising something or other. One gets used to them.

Of course the challenges of living in some countries are so great that preventing litter is not high on the agenda. This sometimes is overlooked by people coming from countries with safety nets that provide adequate food, shelter and medical care for the chronically poor and unemployed.

What is needed are ideas that describe workable systems that make recycling profitable for the people, corporations and governments.

We have well traveled, creative people wandering the HUBB and have perspectives on this issue based upon successes observed worldwide.

Ideas? Let's not forget that the we have a State of Texas sized mass of litter, mostly plastic, floating in the middle of the Pacific Ocean..... Whats up with that?

xfiltrate

Only one? I have heard that there are actually three plastic swirls in Pacific ocean.
Checked this and looks like there is one in Pacific and two others in other oceans http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_P..._garbage_patch

__________________
www.whereishemuli.eu
Riding round the World

Facebook:WhereIsHemuli

This is a very serious thing. Really sad! I heard a good radio Docu on the subject. All this plastic is honestly risking the future of our Oceans, killing them off ... and everything that lives in the Ocean.

Once the Oceans are gone ... humans are gone too. There is so little awareness of this. Sounds like it's time for a WORLD effort to clean up the garbage at sea! This is something we can actually do ... unlike Global Warming ... which is NOW TOO LATE TO REVERSE.

BTW, California and many US states charge a deposit for ALL ALU or plastic
containers. This is not new here ... at least 20 years old. There are recycling centers in most counties and cities where they BUY BACK Alu and plastic containers and then recycle it. This is a BIG BUSINESS!!

Here in California many poor and homeless survive collecting and then selling the plastic/Alu containers.

Also, now in parts of California and other states plastic bags are now OUT LAWED! NO MORE!

Now, most people bring in their own re-usable bags to the store. If you have no bag ... they sell you a paper bag or re-usable plastic bag.

Liter: Here, like much of the developed world, there is a HUGE fine for tossing liter out of your car. I think it's $1000 here. Tiny steps, but steps nonetheless. We could be doing a LOT MORE!

Too many to mention unfortunately

May surprise people but Bali is a real dump, in Lovina I saw people just emptying trash bags into ditches and bushes.

Most of Indonesia is a dump. I never once went for a swim in the whole of the country when we cycled there. I saw what was in the rivers feeding the sea.

__________________
www.seeyouwhenwegetthere.com

India is beyond filthy in parts, I think that'll always be the worst in terms of plastic benig dumped everywhere. Someone said that it's due to the culture, i.e. old India before the economic changes caught up to her, had only organic waste so what was thrown away would always certainly be hoovered up by the cows, donkeys, etc, that graze all over urban areas. With the advent of plastics, the property of the waste changed but not the culture.

As for South America, Chile and Argentina are pretty okay but anywhere in closeness to urban zones will have apparently been visited by many freelance binmen, it's just feckless laziness and I hate it. Peru was the worst in this respect, I saw a bog literally dumped with a load of other crap in a national park, I was going to take a picture, but didn't even bother stopping. How sad.

But let's not forget Europe would be a dump if it were not for extensive campaigns by government, and local authorites who clean up after flytipppers. Likewise, we just sell much of our waste and dump it elsewhere, for little kids to shift through in China or Africa, etc. USA dumped tons of radioactive waste in barrels right off their ships, apparrently tens of thousands of tons, right up until the 80's. When I see all this crap by the side of the road, it's hard not to think of how many used oil filters, plasitc containers of oil, air filters, tires, tubes, etc, I've gone through just in a year out here.

I believe that Indians haven't worked out what rubbish is bio degradable quickly and what will be around for the next 50 to 100 years, 50 years ago you could through out the bag you got your food in (paper) and it was gone in a month, the same with cups - the old fashioned clay cups on the railways would degrade in quickly too.

Now with the introduction of plastic, and the same old habits it is creating a horrible ugly mess!

bet this is the same in South America too!

Still only a few billion people to teach not to litter :-/

I heard this same story in Indonesia. People used to store their food on biodegradable things (like leafs etc). When you dropped that to the ground, it disappeared really fast. Now you can see only plastic.

__________________
www.whereishemuli.eu
Riding round the World

Facebook:WhereIsHemuli

For me plastic is just too cheap. There should be some sort of "waste tax" included, so that people would think alternative options...

Plastic is good for some things, but bad for others...

__________________
www.whereishemuli.eu
Riding round the World

Facebook:WhereIsHemuli

Djibouti africa

Trond B. and I drove through Albania late '08. It was shocking, not just the rubbish thrown out and trodden on, plastic bags hanging in most fence and trees, broken objects everywhere, but the people too.
Barefoot village kids in the rain throwing stuff at us, drunk man mugged in a crwded park, petrol station scams, intense industrial pollution. Really unhygenic food prearation - we saw roadside slaughter, meat on display with no precautions, filthy kitchens, filthy latrines. I hope it has changed now.
OK, Afrika and Asia and South America have their bad sides, this is apparently EU candidate.
For sheer wretchedness, filth and poverty, has to be Bombay slums.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lqtv34fXdog

Safe travels

Peter, in Oslo