on litter

the developing world lacks the luxury of caring about the environment. slums across the world are filled with trash heaps and people dump waste of all sorts directly into the streams where women wash their clothes. appalling? yes. and water sanitation in a major health concern in much of sub-saharan africa. but in terms of the environmental impact of development, with all due respect, its difficult to preach a tree-hugger's mantra to people who feed their entire family on hand-tilled soil and view a tree as a disposable nuisance.

so, upon arriving in blantyre i was instantly infuriated by the amount of garbage that is tossed carelessly into the streets. i pounced on an unsuspecting colleague for letting a gum wrapper slip through her fingers and out the minibus window. my agruments were something along the lines of , 'how will any international firms come here and be inspired enough to invest their millions in your desperate economy if you don't care enough to walk over to a trash can?'

but then i started seeing the other side of the story....

children rummage around in the trenches along the roadsides picking out such jetsom as empty biscuit packets, plastic bags (majumbo), scrap metal, bits of wire, literally anything non-compostable. everyday when i walk to work i hold my breath while i pass the same smelly men riffling through our neighborhood trash bags before collection, searching for uneaten morsels and valuable discard.

and what, pray is the purpose? well, old women make a local brew (tobwa) out of sugar, cassava flour, water  and sell it from old water bottles. once a hunchbacked lady followed me three blocks before i figured out that she was waiting for me to finish the last sip of my water and toss the bottle in the street. she thanked me profusely when i turned around and handed it to her. kids carry their school paper to class in empty kilo bags of sugar, and they make the most incredible push trucks out of metal wire bits with bottle-cap wheels. in the scheme of things, people are unbelievably resourceful here; old tires are shredded into rubber strips for make shift bungy-cords and plastic packets are re-used as containers or shredded and braided into twine.

surely, there is trash everywhere, but its refuse that's merely waiting for resurrection to some new higher purpose. meanwhile, we cart away our junk to landfills, (out of sight, out of mind right?) where it sits. forever.

-just some food for thought