One aspect of Nepal that made a real impression on me was the sheer volume of rubbish everywhere, particularly in Katmandu. One very holy place, where people brought their dead relatives to be cremated and for their ashes to be transported down the river to eventually find the Ganges, was piled high with old plastic bags. Funerals were happening right in front of piles of plastic and filth that floated down the river along with their relatives’ remains. I thought it strange that this didn’t seem to trouble anyone -I reckon it would take just a few people to clean up the area pretty easily.
The Nepalis, or at least those in Katmandu are apparently not that fussed. Where would the rubbish go for a start? There isn’t any rubbish collection service in town. So different to America anyway, where most districts provide a series of coloured bins for you to separate all your recyclable goods from the rest of your rubbish before they pick them up.
So you live in the US and you think you’ve done your thing by separating out all your trash. Right?
Actually probably not. It turns out that a significant quantity of the “recyclable goods” from the good old US of A are sent to China for sorting. A-ha so China must be at the forefront of recycling? Emphatically not. All my rubbish here goes into a single bin probably destined for a landfill site somewhere. I suspect all the the recyclable stuff sent here for sorting probably has the same fate. I couldn’t tell for sure of course but since my visit to Nepal I have made a real effort not to use plastic bags. It’s not going to change the world but I’m going to try to reduce how much refuse I generate.