I’ve just finished reading a fascinating account of some personal direct action from a Canadian who is living and working in Morocco. Robbin Yager provides Tours and Treks in Morocco. One day she decided to roll up her sleeves and start clearing plastic trash out of some of the dry riverbeds in that country.
Here is a summary from her page on direct action:
Over the 10 years I’ve been living and working in Morocco, I’ve seen plastic grow from a few bags blowing across the Sahara, to clogged rivers and watersheds everywhere, from a few bags left by roadsides to huge dumps into ravines and gorges. In developing countries where information is not readily available to citizens, it can take governments a long time to develop solutions for problems. I believe people learn and are encouraged by example. Tourism is very important in Morocco. As a tourist anyone can make the problem seen and heard most easily by taking direct action. And I have to add, it feels so very good to pick up that first bag!
I have never undertaken any trash cleanups as ambitious as hers. When I was in Tunisia, I would walk for a few kilometers on the beach and pick up as much as I could carry. I always worried about where this trash went after I placed it in the dumpsters. Recycling in that region was pretty much limited to those few items that were profitable such as corrugated paper and plastic beverage containers. I was once confronted by a guard as I approached the fence of a beach resort while picking up garbage. I didn’t have the command of the language that it would take to make a nuanced response when I was asked what I was doing. This was a tense and awkward moment and it was discouraging.
When I first moved to Malta five years ago, I spent the first month living in a cheap apartment on the outskirts of a resort area. There was a lot of litter. Whenever I was putting our recyclables and garbage on the curb, I would always spend some time adding to our allotment from the stuff that was lying around outside. One day, a British expat across the street was laughing at me and telling me how futile it was to pick up trash. I think his words were ‘You’ll never get t all.”
I will never get it all but I still make a point of getting some of it. I am not a strong swimmer, so when the rest of the family is snorkeling in the deep I dive around in the shallows picking up ice cream cups and coke bottles and plastic bags and bendy straws. When I have gathered an armload of trash, I usually have to walk to a receptacle that is conveniently located next to businesses that cater to tourists. The big sunglasses that are in vogue prevent me from accurately gauging the looks that I get from these tourists. I have never had anyone join me.
Littering is one a a handful of social and environmental issues that I keep my nose out of when I am a guest in a foreign country. I do keep up with the local news and I quietly cheer on any local people who are speaking up about those issues. Tunisia has an official mascot for environmentalism. It is a cartoonish looking fennec fox that is often mistaken as a mouse by tourists. Malta finally has a real tax on plastic bags. Tourists sometime grumble and pay the Euro 0.25 per bag. Locals use reusable bags or sometimes cardboard boxes.
I think spending some time picking up litter while you are on vacation is a great idea. If you want to plan a vacation around cleaning up plastic trash, Hawaii sounds like the perfect place.
