"The penalty good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men." attributed to Plato

"Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing." attributed to Edmund Burke

Let's between us make the world a better place.




Monday 4 November 2013

Litter, trash,garbage, rubbish, refuse, junk: Revisited

The city of Bangkok is amazing - vibrant, colorful, noisy, chaotic, and wonderful in many ways. All the street food vendors, the Buddhist shrines everywhere, the flood water when the monsoon rains fall, the traffic, the taxis which always seem to take you to the wrong place, the tuk-tuks, and the street food! There is fast food everywhere, cooked at the pavement, eaten at rickety tables sitting on sometimes tiny chairs. People seem to be living on top of one another. The population density per Wikipedia is said to be 5300 per km2, pretty much the same as London. (OK I know that we can debate which area of a city is used for these calculations, but for the sake of argument let's take these figures to be pretty roughly comparable.) Why then is Bangkok so clean? And London so dirty?
I am talking mainly about litter. Of course in Bangkok the street food avoids the plastic wrapping that is so much a part of fast food London and its suburbs. But surely there is something more to this? Is it the pride that people take in their home town? Of course you see plenty of rubbish in the streets of Bangkok, but it is largely the piles awaiting collection by the public services or whoever takes this away for them.

Albany in Western Australia is so clean. Litter really is a minor problem. And the whole place is clean. The pavements are clean. The bus stops are clean. The parks are clean. And people get annoyed with other people who leave cigarette butts at beauty spots -they leave notices - and butt-bins - and clean up after them!

a besmirched mosaic in the Oxted subway - disgusting!
Oxted in Surrey UK is filthy. And it has a real litter problem as well. Population? Albany has 281 per km2, not that far different from Oxted with c. 330 per km2. So how can Albany be so clean, Oxted so dirty? Is it simply that Albany cares?

Come on UK. Let's start having a little more pride in how we look.

And this is chewing gum all over the pavements in Oxted.  Disgusting? Yes!!

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