Waste Patrol

On Friday we had the chance to help the 5th grade class and the 3rd grade class with a trash clean up around the school perimeters.  I'm not going to lie the task was a bit daunting just because the trash build up was so great that our hour and a half effort to clean the field only made a small dent in the trash dilemma.  I am proud that the school took responsibility to clean, but I truly believe that there needs to be a cultural change in how people think about trash here.  Trash burning is a very common practice in Panama because towns either don't have garbage services or the services are too expensive.  So the most convenient alternative is to burn the trash to get rid of it.  I really don't blame the people especially since they don't have garbage trucks coming to dispose (or displace) their loads of trash.  What else are they suppose to do?  But in turn burning the trash is very bad for the health of the people, plants, and animals surrounded by the fumes.  This issue is something I would love to invest more time in.  I strongly believe change can start with the younger generation.  Teach your kids and they will be your future.  This Friday was a baby step and I'm hoping there will be more steps in the future to eliminate this problem.


Side rant: Though this issue is more in your face here (literally the fumes choke you up), this issue is by no means exclusive to Panama. In fact in the States, with the convenience of weekly garbage services, trash has become an out of sight out of mind issue. We stuff our trash in cans, which get hauled away every Thursday and when our waste is gone there remains a large empty can for us to fill again. But once the garbage man hauls our waste away has it truly disappeared? Perhaps this system causes us to create more waste than we otherwise would. It's easy for us to arrive in Panama and smugly scoff at the piles of burning trash, but really are things much better in the States? This issue has caused us to reflect on how waste is handled globally as well as how we handle our trash personally and we encourage you to do the same.

Johanis (3rd grade), David (3rd grade), Eric (5th grade, our host brother)