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RE: How to turn your land into a dump in Vietnam: Just don't put a fence around it!

in ASEAN HIVE COMMUNITY2 years ago

It's something I will never get used to here, even in the last beautiful unspoiled wilderness in Cambodia, a national wildlife refuge, and one of the last great forests in SE Asia, tourists from the capital passing through zing their diapers out the window, toss piss bottles, and our neighbors just burn and toss everything in the river.

Crazy thing is their is a giant garbage bin in our village sponsored by the government, and they stopped collecting because nobody was putting anything in it. When I tell my neighbors I simply take a small bag of trash with me each time I go to town and toss it in a bin, they show a face that lets me know that seems like too much effort.

Luckily we only have 6 people upstream from us, so it's not that bad, but I must admit the trash factor played a major role in us trying to live above all other humans in Cambodia. I would rather be above trash than below it at at the end of the day. You should see the look on people's faces when I explain the carcinogens released by burning plastic, "silly foreigner," I know the look. They think I'm lying about the dangers because I simply don't like the smell or sight of it, it's an uphill battle no doubt.

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 2 years ago  

Yeah it's pretty remarkable isn't it? I'm not going to try to tell anyone how to run their country and I realize that people are much poorer over here but I just don't understand that mentality of not caring what the area directly around where you live looks like. There is garbage everywhere and the hotel area does things to try to make it appear as though it isn't like that.

not long ago I went to a beach where all the hotels either didn't exist or haven't opened back up yet since the closures and there was garbage, mostly plastic, just everywhere. It was really disgusting and no wonder nobody uses that beach.

Thankfully here most plastic bottles end up getting recycled for money so that kind of sorts that out but as far as bags or since basically everything comes wrapped in plastic we have a sort of Asian tumbleweed that scoots all over the place. Sometimes during a big storm the wind kicks up little plastic bag tornados.