Trash walk. Guinea, West Africa. How do we make this stop?
I recently took a tip to Guinea, West Africa. The amount of trash on land and floating into the sea was horrific. Guinea is a place where resources and knowledge of environmental stewardship are limited due to the reality of simply focusing on personal and communal survival.
Big industries/companies (Coca-Cola…) dump all their excess junk into the country (and many other third world countries), creating an overflow of trash for a population that has no way of disposing of it.
The piles of trash on land are scattered across the country. What is not burned (releasing horrible toxins into the environment) is ending up in streams, oceans, and water systems. Lack of education on the environmental and health effects of trash piles is not to be blamed on the people, as many of them are living day to day, just barely getting by. The responsibility lies with the companies that produce this toxic trash, supply it, and ship it around the world, taking no affirmative action for the repercussions that their products have on the environment and human health.
The question I have been pondering and ask you is this: how do we tackle pollution problems in countries that know no other alternative than to throw plastic and garbage out the front door and have limited understanding of the rippling effects that it causes on a larger scale? If people are just living to survive each day, what would make them even start to think about caring for the environment around them when they have so many others in their immediate surroundings to care for?
According to a study done by the University of Utah, Americans represent 5% of the world’s population, but generate around 30% of the world’s garbage. Each day, Americans fill somewhere around 63,000 garbage trucks to be sent to the land fill. This doesn’t include the amount of trash (electronics!) that America sends overseas for others to deal with. Americans don’t actually see the amount of trash they produce, but in countries like Guinea it is in your face, all the time, everywhere. If Americans actually saw the amount of trash they produce and had to figure out how to get rid of it themselves, would people be more conscious of their footprint?
The biggest challenges I see to the world’s current trash problems:
1. Figuring out a way to create financially viable and economically stimulating ways for third world countries to be able to dispose of their trash. Creating a sense of responsibility for the land and people and its interconnection, while at the same time providing economic relief of “survival living” would allow for a shift in the way trash is seen, used and disposed of.
2. The common “out of sight out of mind” mentality that many westernized countries adopt is a huge issue. People don’t actually see their daily trash use, so they have no idea how much trash they are actually producing and where it is ending up.
3. Creating products that don’t add to the trash mounds. Holding companies responsible for 100% of their product cycle from creation to disposal.
As surfers and nature lovers, we can and should be the force for change. It’s our playground. We must protect it and find viable solutions for making long term beneficial change for all parties involved.
