Cleaning up our Act

Hola Gaspesie,

There is no government solution to this problem.  Poverty has a way of ensuring that there or no real public services. Developing nations need the commitment and man power of those of us from the wealthy west to pick up the garbage, be generous to all Dominicans living in poverty and thank our lucky stars we were so blessed to be born into abundance while others suffer.......

Ok that is just not correct.

We are a developing nation with many many services.  The municipal government is responsible for.providing garbage pick up. 

You will need to go to your city hall and ask for the person in charge.

Rest assured that no real change will happen quickly.

Municipal elections happen soon.  For that reason you are best to wait at least another month before trying to do something.

Indeed, it depends on the mayor.

David Callado addressed such a problem in Santo domingo National District and my understanding was that the mayor in Santiago did likewise. Incidentally both of the younger generation of politicians and I am hopeful we see more changes in the upcoming elections to rid the town halls of 'do nothing' and often corrupt mayors.

Steverino777, the educated younger generation of Dominicans do care about their environment, but it will take many years of education to change the attitude of 'don't care' and dump garbage everywhere rather than in designated waste disposal units.

But as mentioned in another thread, garbage does get recycled here one way or another eventually and with perhaps better end results than some western countries where people do care greatly but big business who handles their carefully segregated waste doesn't and ships the problems elsewhere finding cheapest solutions.

When Canadians compare their recycling with the US.....

The results are drastically different......

Not all countries are 'up to speed'

I am convinced a good portion of the recyclables throw in the bin here in the States is not in fact recycled. The Chinese have all all but stopped accepting our "garbage", so a good amount ends up in a landfill or shipped of to another country that may be more receptive to it. If there is no money to be made no one wants to accept this stuff. Governments and corp's here are not people (despite what some politicians like to claim) and don't get any "warm fuzzies" from recycling, with no regard to economics.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/201 … bal-crisis

In my town in South Carolina the recyclables go to the general landfill because they can’t find anyone reasonably price to accept it. My wife still sorts the trash. She says it makes her feel she is doing something 😄

And there lies a huge issue for the world environment.

It cannot all be about cost in western countries, and if people are to be responsible about the environment, they will need to accept some financial impacts too. It is all well feeling good sorting the plastics from the paper and metals and putting them in different receptacles, but not doing anything to change what happens next. It appears the younger generation is on board with a need to change, but unfortunately not all their elders are, and are likely ruining their children's futures.

Whilst the garbage we see here in DR is not nice and society here needs to educate and tackle this problem, in the end the cost benefits of sorting out selecting and recycling just about anything of value even at landfill sites, is such that DR is probably doing much more than many western societies reusing the Earth's finite resources albeit in a round about way without clear planning.

That was my thought regarding one of the earlier discussions on this topic, that it appears the DR is probably being more effective with their more "organic" method of recycling than some other countries. In our North Carolina home town recycling appears to be more of a facade. We still diligently sort everything though. Can't help it   

In my small neighbourhood I was disappointed to see garbage all over, especially into the backs of the ravine that is alongside the one side. I spoke with a couple of people, local mini-mart store owners about all the garbage. I offered to put garbage barrels and bags in key areas and then suggested local kids might earn a bit of money by picking up garbage. It's taken a year or more, but we now have kids and grown ups picking up garbage and the ravine banks are getting cleaned up. The street cleaners have less garbage thrown on the streets and while still busy, appreciate the efforts. (one older gent that cleans the streets I have paid him extra every so often after asking him to do something ) Everyone seems to be liking it and while they have no idea that I initiated this (except two people) I can clearly see neighbourhood pride. I have seen even some of the older youths will sometimes get on to their friends if they litter.......small steps for a much larger issue......Oh yes, the city garbage collectors must have said something because the city has replaced the severely broken dumpsters with newer ones and they collect garbage here sometimes three times a week. That makes a difference as well....

My wife - who visits less frequently than I do claims there is a BIG difference in roadside waste...

She comments every time vs her opinion of 8-9-10 yrs ago

Yes things are slowly improving.   As guests here, we must walk a line between telling people here how it should be and what they should do and encouraging and aiding change!

Some of these comments have nothing to do with the subject of this thread?
Thank you Planner and Lennoxnev for the info.

My bad. Sometimes these threads take on a life of their own, with a bit of prompting.

Well let's stick  to garbage kids.

Some days this is like herding cats. 

Re-reading Gaspesie's opening post, she refers to garbage alongside the ring road which presumably is the Autovia del Este.

If so the municipal council is not the the responsible body. It will be MOPC, Ministry of Public Works which is responsible for cleaning the highways and you will see orange uniformed workers trimming grass and picking up garbage in black bags from time to time.

Best of luck getting some response from them.

Good point.  MOPC is funded by the toll structure on the highway!  Getting them to respond will be more challenging then the municipal government.

lennoxnev wrote:

Re-reading Gaspesie's opening post, she refers to garbage alongside the ring road which presumably is the Autovia del Este.

If so the municipal council is not the the responsible body. It will be MOPC, Ministry of Public Works which is responsible for cleaning the highways and you will see orange uniformed workers trimming grass and picking up garbage in black bags from time to time.

Best of luck getting some response from them.

LOL, they tend to clean the areas once every few months or so whether they need it or not.

Post #11 by PVSoldier was most enlightening and perhaps is a beacon for other expats now living in DR to follow....cleaning up our act

It has got me thinking about garbage management when I move back into the campo sometime this year. It is small agricultural village away from any major town (Cevicos and Sabana de Grand Boya are half an hour away and the first 5 kms is a dirt road). you don't get too many plastic bags nor polysytrene food containers which is a start.

The village community is strong and most are related one way or another and proud of their community, and to exemplify this they paid for and surfaced the roads in the centre of the village yet the access roads for many miles around are unsurfaced and at times rough. From what I have seen, the garbage is currently collected by one of the older guys (who also is known to get blind drunk on cheap rum from time to time and hopelessly wasted), who uses his mule and a wood cart to go around and collect garbage regularly. My understanding is that he gets a small wage from the village. I've seen him sort the bottles from the cans and plastics and burn the rest. Any food leftovers have already gone to chickens and pigs and dogs. I suspect he sells on the selected waste to the mudanzas who visit the village in small trucks. All seems good but I have seen kids drop litter and made them pick up but more needs to be done. On reflection the village is clean by comparison. I just think adding waste barrels and specifically coloured barrels for each type of waste would be a next step. I also like the idea of collecting horse,mule and donkey droppings and start producing organic fertilizer. I am sure one could start something through the local school and plan to research. From time to time we get expat volunteers at the school.

I guess we expats should all step up to the plate like PVSoldier and help with the education process and recycling.

Now for you folks in Sosua. There are plenty of expats there so why don't you group together and start some sort of initiative? I hear so much gripping about the sorry and dirty state of parts of the town on social media. Time to step up too?