[snielson]

Having been to Guatemala, the culture is to throw most trash on the ground. The trash is then washed into the rivers during heavy rains. It's sad to see. The country has a lot of natural beauty, but there is trash everywhere.

[Octokiddie]

Any insights into what makes this culturally acceptable?

[LeifCarrotson]

The country lacks any real garbage collection infrastructure. And I'm not just talking about ritzy landfill/recycling/compost bin sets every few hundred feet on the sidewalk, emptied by the municipality, I mean there's literally nowhere for any service to actually take the trash if it was in a bin and not on the ground.

Most cities don't even have a functioning, modern landfill, just clandestine piles served by dump truck. Much of the trash picked up by this effort may have literally already been collected and dumped by a truck in a pile by the river.

There's a big "broken windows" element to the continuation of the problem. It's going to take altruistically motivated, powerful regulators and a lot of money to fix, and neither is not easy to come by in Guatemala.

[sidewndr46]

If that's the case, then what is this charity going to do with all this trash? Send it back up the river to be dumped again?

[dredmorbius]

"After trash is removed from the Interceptor Barricade using excavators, it is weighed on-site to determine the total catch quantity and passed to local partners and waste management authorities for processing."

Caption to the first photo in TFA.

[sidewndr46]

Sure, I saw that as well. But based on the data in this post, the local trash disposal method is to just dump it in the river.

[dredmorbius]

One would hope that specifically-contracted partners and authorities wouldn't be engaged in such activities, though Ocean Cleanup's site is ... somewhat vague on this point.

Might make for a useful pointed inquiry, as such gaps and loopholes are a stubbornly pervasive aspect of similar initiatives.

[nickburns]

you'll make your progeny exceedingly wealthy beyond even your wildest dreams and for generations to come if you can answer the first question. but you're obviously just being sarcastic given the second, so no, that's not likely what they intend to do with it.

[nickburns]

very, very well said.

just from one language learner to another, so i hope you can appreciate this small grammatical correction:

> and neither is not easy to come by in Guatemala.

...the infamous 'double negative' que es correcto en español y otros, ¡pero es incorrecto en inglés!

it would seem to be true, and i would certainly defer to you, that altruistic minded and not toothless regulators, plus a whole lot of money are both necessary—and *neither is easy to come by in Guatemala.

again, great explanation of what might be difficult to comprehend from the perspective of others in this modern, interconnected world.

[readthenotes1]

No Ladybird Johnson like figure driving public policy in the 1960s, melding the hippies and government together?

The TV was inundated with public service announcements shaming trash throwers in the USA for maybe 15 years. It made a difference.

Having seen similar "just throw it on the ground" behavior in India and china, I think that it may be a natural response in a rural culture that needs to be changed once it is in a city and non degrading packaging is used

[wlesieutre]

Even “Don’t mess with Texas” started as an anti-littering campaign in the mid-80’s into the 90’s

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don't_Mess_with_Texas

[dredmorbius]

"Individual responsibility" anti-littering campaigns, most notoriously the 1971 "crying indian" advert, were strongly driven by industries associated with single-use packaging and products which overwhelmingly constituted such pollution. By putting the onus on individual "consumers", the producers were off the hook for responsibility.

Create an economy in which there is nothing to throw away, or in which costs of recovery and recycling are built in to the products themselves and effectively incentivise round-trip material flows, and the problem largely solves itself. Market dynamics tend strongly away from such mechanisms.

Free-market advocates like to point to the general success of anti-pollution, clean air, clean water, safety, and other similar measures in rich Western countries, without acceding in the least that overwhelmingly such progress has come through courts, legal processes, and social advocacy, rather than market mechanisms. Wealth overwhelmingly has shown that it is self-serving power, as Adam Smith noted nearly 250 years ago.

There's a 1967 interview of Ralph Nader by Studs Terkel I've recently run across, and which describes very much what's happening now as it did the circumstances of nearly 60 years ago, though the industries addressed have shifted somewhat. I cannot recommend this highly enough.

<https://studsterkel.wfmt.com/programs/ralph-nader-discusses-...>

Direct audio: <https://s3.amazonaws.com/wfmt-studs-terkel/published/11364.m...> (MP3)

[selimthegrim]

The "Walker told me I have litter" mashup/reboot of this is waiting to happen

[dylan604]

The "Don't mess with Texas" campaign is supposed to have been fairly effective. I just don't know who is making that determination. If it has been effective, I would hate to see what it without. I'm just not sure where the "learning" is established that some people get it and others don't

[ropable]

If there's no refuse collection service, then people dispose of it themselves. In this instance, it makes rational sense for the individual to dispose of refuse continuously/immediately (dump) rather than aggregating it (collect). And if everyone around you is doing that....culture.

[dylan604]

on a smaller scale, I've been involved in many outdoor events with large number of attendees. if you put a trash can further apart than every 10', people will think it is too far and choose to not bother. it's one of those weird things seeing the seemingly large number of trash cans placed around before the crowds.

so i can totally see how it would happen if a country just doesn't have the proper infrastructure to start

[wil421]

It’s acceptable because there is no other option. Except burning it and I’m sure that happens too.

[latchkey]

SE Asia is the same. Literally in the culture. The mind boggles.

[aussieguy1234]

I have personally witnessed people in the Philippines who live next to the ocean quite literally taking out the trash from their bins, then tossing it directly into the ocean current to be taken away. No functioning garbage collection service there either.

[raincom]

Well, lack of "garbage collection infrastructure" better explains what's going on in SE Asia, India. When there is no such infrastructure, where else people dump?

[latchkey]

Saigon is a massive city and has garbage collection infrastructure, yet people still dump trash into the rivers that run through the cities. It is actual culture to just toss trash onto the streets, into the gutters and into the rivers.

I used to live alongside Truong Sa river and watched people dump their trash into it all day long. There is even a govt run group that goes up and down the river all day long picking up trash.

I've been following this group for a while now... they do cleanups all the time...

https://www.instagram.com/sai_gonxanh/

[Workaccount2]

I have worked with people who grew up in Central America and just drop garbage on the ground when done with something. Even if the trash is 20 feet away.

It's hard to shake natural habits from your youth, especially if you don't even care that much.

[latchkey]

My experience is that it isn't about not caring.

It is that people who have very little (or come from very little) care about different things, like putting food on the table, today. It is survival instinct only.

Quality of education goes a long way too. Do they teach sustainability in schools there? Even if they did, how many generations of kids do we have to go through before they teach these things to their kids?

There is no concept of a week or a month or 10 years from now. When you're lacking that, you have no care for the future or how your actions today, will affect things down the road.

It really was eye opening taking myself out of my nurture and actually living in a place like SE Asia.