Trash

I've been meaning to write about trash ever since we were in India. EVERYWHERE in Asia is covered with it, and the scale of the environmeental disaster represented by the plastic, which is most of it, is hard to grasp. I don't think Asians use any more than people in Europe and the US, probably less, but because there is little infrastructure for collecting, much less recycling, it all goes straight into the streets and rivers. In Siem Reap, environmental consciousness - or tourist conscioussness - has risen to the level where there's a net strung across the river a quarter mile above town. The result is that the river in town looks merely dirty - and there is a great barrage of floating trash just out of sight around the corner.)

It's easy to be shocked by the lack of concern about this, but the scale of the problem is so vast. On Ko Tao, I actually got lost for about half an hour on a steep jungle hike far from any of the resorts or villages - and I could still have picked up a supermarket bag or plastic water bottle every 20 paces.