Trash in Yangon

When Yangon students talk about foreign countries they have visited, one adjective that inevitably comes up is "clean." It's true that in Yangon, there is no reliable garbage removal system. Many people throw their wrappers and plastic bags on the ground and as a result, some of the water ways are overwhelmed by litter. It's easy to be taken aback by the sheer quantity of waste that has collected in some areas, and I've thought on more than one occasion, "I can’t believe they throw away so much trash."

But it's not the amount of garbage that's unique, it's the proximity to living spaces. The average resident of Yangon creates much less garbage than the average resident of an American city, it's just harder to sweep under the rug. I can't even imagine what US cities would look like without reliable trash removal. The streets would be choking in it.

Even if they ignore it, the people in Yangon must have a more realistic understanding of the garbage they create. It's not something that disappears when we put it in a trash can. It remains and clogs our water, only becoming dirtier. The plastics we use will outlive us by thousands of years.

Orion Martin ('11) is currently volunteer teaching in Yangon, Burma.