SO WHAT DID YOU LEARN?
My favorite question to ask undergraduates when they return from study abroad is “What did you learn about the United States from your study abroad?” The obvious question involves what they learned about the country where they studied. But we learn about ourselves by looking in the mirror of another culture. So last night I was invited to a little gathering of Ecuadorian intellectuals and professionals, including an anthropologist, and one of those topics of discussion was litter. I guess we really became aware of litter when Lady Bird Johnson accomplished so much to beautify American Highways.
Ecuadorians litter. It´s part of their culture. Few people have a second thought about throwing whatever they don´t want into the street. Candy wrappers, kleenex, any sort of opened package that no longer serves a purpose. It doesn´t make any difference what it is. If it´s not wanted, it´s discarded. In the cities, it´s less of a problem because there is an army of public workers whose job it is to sweep the streets by hand. I suppose that the good news is that it provides employment. But I´ve seen too many instances of people littering right next to someone sweeping trash into a container. The problem isn´t so bad in the cities where the armies of sweepers work all day long to keep up with the trash. The real problem is in rural areas where there isn´t any one. I know someone who picked up 3 tons of trash on his property when he bought it. He now charges people a private fine of a dollar if they litter.
Ecuador has a fledgling ecotourism industry. So what. Nature preserves aren´t immune to litter. They can be just as bad. It just doesn´t occur to most Ecuadorians that there is anything wrong with littering. As my friends pointed out, this includes people who drive Mercedes Benzes. There is a threatened area on the north coast of Ecuador where there are incredible mangrove swamps. Because rivers empty into them from the interior of the country, the swamps are loaded with plastic bottles and other kinds of inorganic litter that won´t decompose.
Fear not, this is becoming to change. But when looks at Ecuador, it´s impossible not to think about littering in our country, and how different our cultures are. Not that we´re perfect, as everyone knows.
