The Issue of Trash In Nicaragua

 One of the environmental concerns that consistently comes up when talking about Nicaragua is the issue of trash in public areas (i.e the streets, parks). As a training group, we recently completed a mock survey, or encuestra, to further investigate this issue on a more local level in El Rosario. The overwhelming sentiment seems to be that it is the government’s response to clean up the trash that seems to litter all public places. After all, after hundreds of years throwing organic material on the ground that would decompose quickly, it’s hard to switch to the habit of throwing trash in specific receptacles.

It seems that this is the response that is most quickly offered is to educate students about the importance of making sure they dispose of their trash in a responsible manner. The first lady of Nicaragua (who most Nicaraguans think is a witch, but that’s a different story) has actually started a campaign called “Viva Sano, Limpio, Bonito,” which roughly translates to “Live Safely, Live Cleanly, Live Beautifully.” The whole focus is to get people to pick up their trash, and the slogan is particularly ubiquitous on trash cans and pack benches.

While I think that this may be a good first step in addressing the issue of trash in Nicaragua, I’ve also had a lot of time to think on this issue (When it takes you about 30 min to eat a bowl of gallo pinto, you have a lot of time to think).  While trash on the streets is an issue that needs to be solved, it also brings to light the problem of trash that is worldwide. Nicaragua is a country produces significantly less trash than the United States. However, the problem of trash appears to be much greater simply. Why is this? It is based on the impact that the visibility of an issue has.

As humans, sight is one of the most important senses that we possess. The question, “Would you rather be blind or deaf?” most frequently produces the response “Deaf” because we rely so much on this one sense. Thus, it is only logical that the more visible an issue, the more likely we are to act on it. The issue of global warming is an especially potent example. This is a potentially dangerous phenomenon, but because of its lack of visibility to the human eyeit’s been hard to convince people of its existence.

In the United States, we have largely surpassed the issue of trash in public places that seems to be a focus of development efforts in Nicaragua. My question is though: has this indeed solved the issue of trash, or simply made it less visible? While I am certainly not an advocate for the current mode of trash disposal in Nicaragua, I can’t help but think that the way we address the issue of trash in the US isn’t much better. Does hiding the problem really solve the issue? The trash may be buried, hidden from human eyes, but has it really gone away? Perhaps this method of trash disposal has even aided in hiding the true problem presented by the disposability of the products that we buy. While I feel inadequate to post solutions to a complex problem on my PC blog, I’m at least beginning to feel that the solution being presented in Nicaragua may not be the best one.

This could also be a wakeup call to try and change my eating habits a bit. As I told you earlier, when it takes over 30 min for me to finish Gallo Pinto (and I have it almost 3x a day), I have a lot of time to think about things like this. I promise that my next entry will be more fun and informative of what I am actually doing here. Miss you all!