Dirtiest place you have seen
 

Today I crossed from Ecuador to Peru and followed Pan American highway.
I was truly shocked how filthy northern Peru is, thrash is just everywhere :nuke:
I think northern Peru is dirtier than India, but what is your comment? What is the dirtiest area you have seen (not just one spot but overall area)?

India and Birma. Sad to see plastic EVERYWHERE ...

Fortune and Glory, kid. Fortune and Glory.

Belgium, for the dog sh1t that lies in the designated children's play areas, which are fenced off but the locals deliberately allow their 4 legged friends to poop there.
That was 20 years ago, observed when I lived there for a while, so perhaps they have cleaned up their act.

Along the Nile river in Egypt, specially Cairo.

GRTZ,

JP

Southern Pakistan (i.e. Sindh), unbelievable dirt, makes India look pretty clean.

Dhaka in Bangladesh comes pretty close.

Yeah I've seen that recently and it's "spread" to Luxembourg, including on the gas station forecourt........footrests.....and hotel reception in Metz :oops2:

Also I was quite taken back in a very rural part of Turkey to see 1000's of water bottles spread across the countryside. I could only assume they got carried there by the wind or dumped from a truck?

But yes India has a lot of plastic in a lot of areas but thankfully not everywhere......yet

Plastic is good for some items, but I just cannot understand why everything needs to be wrapped in to it (like each candy inside a candy bag).
It just annoys me when there is a really beautiful scenery, but it is completely ruined by empty bottles, plastic bags, paper etc (like pan american highway on northern Peru).

I can understand in the cities if it is dirty because there is no proper handling of a trash, but I cannot understand adults in those areas who throw trash everywhere (from moving cars etc).

So sad to see these things :thumbdown:

I understand your question. But I would like to see the question slightly changed to. The filthiest place you know, but the people know about it. As in the places that have been posted. The local population don't see the rubbish. Go to London or most big city's in the UK and it's all over the place. To me the people who live there should know what rubbish is. And what to do with it. But no. It's just dumped where they stand. Go to Singapore and it's 50 buck's on the spot if you drop so much as a fag end.


Greece is not that clean. But hell they have more problems that rubbish in the street's
John933

Southern Turkey has a lot of plastic bottles next to the road (coastal roads).
I do not know if it is from the locals or from tourists :nono:

It's bike rider's. I've seen them do it. Drink from bottle. When empty. Dump bottle.
John933

I always thought it was truck drivers - drink from bottle and when empty, fill bottle and chuck out window. :rolleyes2:

Not really a region but the north end of Nouhadibou in Mauritania is a complete dump. Literally it's a dump, grazed by herds of goats with paper and plastic that they've unearthed blowing around all over the place. A bit of a surprise when you come in from the relatively clean desert.

Waste along the road is a problem in most of the third world countrys but it gets very bad if people start to change the Oil of their cars and despose the old oil into a river and start to cut down the rain forest:

http://afrikamotorrad.eu/?report=en_westkueste

More garbage awaits your visit
 

Well, Hemuli, if you are going to continue South on the Panamericana algong the coast of Peru, :welcome: to many more garbage sights!!! I rode the Panamericana, all the way to Chile, last December, and I truly got sick and tired of so much garbage...

Yeah, it is really filthy road and it is mainly travelled by tourists, so why they do not keep it cleaner... :thumb down:

I got tired for all that filth and took some small inland roads. Really nice! No trash (no people :) ) and scenery is gorgeous :thumbup1:

No people no trash.

I've seen filth all over the world ... but mostly Latin America, where I spent enough time to understand the cultural reasons of WHY there is SO MUCH trash and WHY no one seems to give a SH*T.

It's not just "trash" like plastic bottles, plastic bags, it's also filth from raw sewage, construction debris, car junk, anything. With Sewage (a serious one) it's that it has NO WHERE to go. In places, Civil Engineering is NOT their strong suit! :nono: So it goes downhill, to a river, the Ocean or in the street where you walking! We've all seen (and smelled this) many times I'm sure, and not just in Latin America.

I spent time at the MAIN dump just outside Mexico City. (a City of about 22 million) The scene there rates pretty high on my "dirtiest" place list. Hundreds of people ... including LOTS of young kids (think "SlumDog Millionaire") live there and make a living sorting through trash. Astounding scene.

I worked on a movie that filmed in that Dump for TWO DAYS and NIGHTS. The Dump is so huge, words cannot describe. It goes on and on for hundreds of hectares. After an hour there, you become "nose blind" to the smell. At night when you leave, you are covered in DIRT! Seeing the kids digging in the garbage and avoiding the cops and Bull Dozers was unbelievable.

The good news is many countries in Latin America have launched campaigns to counter random street littering. I saw littering as a kind of "Macho" thing, to just toss trash down like you don't care. But lately, less of this attitude. Ads against littering are mostly targeted at young people. It works. Also, lots more TRASH CANS ... everywhere! So, at least some positives here that I have seen, in person, over the last 30 years.

Also, if you talk to locals, they will tell you they have street sweeper people who's job it is to sweep up. (they do) They felt if they stopped littering, then the street cleaners might be OUT OF A JOB! Whatever! :helpsmilie:

Another stand out slum in Peru' are the MASSIVE slums along the Pan Am
just North of Lima. I don't know what this area is like NOW, but when I saw it many years ago ... it was nasty. THOUSANDS of unfinished houses, little to NO infrastructure, for sure no Sewage management. The scene was quite
astounding ... when 20 minutes South you're in the Miraflores neighborhood of Lima. :Beach:

In Germany, if you throw trash on the ground ... some old lady will come after you, and scold you! NIEN NIEN NIEN!!
Folks in "teutonic" northern countries are especially anal regards liter and garbage ...a bit over board sometimes?
Kids in the US are also well trained now to deal with trash ... and water bottles have become declasse here in
California. NOT A HIP THING at all. Re-usable bottles are The Way .. (for now).

But it is disheartening to see a beautiful landscape ruined by thousands of plastic bags trapped in a road side fence. This, even today, is still all too common. California is NOW in the process of BANNING all plastic bags. How long until the rest of the world follows?

The real travelers question could also be:
What is the dirtiest place you have eaten? (restaurant or public market)
and What is the dirtiest "hotel" or "Hostel" you have paid to stay in for the night? :mchappy:
I've got quite a few "good ones". :smartass:

Next up? Public bathrooms (WC)!!! doh

The Kola peninsula and especially the town Nikel in north west Russia.

From the stories here, I can't imagine my experience is as bad but I was very surprised at the amount of roadside rubbish in Kosovo. Stop to take a photo of the beautiful mountains and you're wading through plastic bags.

Plastic
 

Perhaps the manufacturers of all those plastic bottles and containers might launch a promotional campaign against littering and fund recycling efforts.

Maybe they do already, but the programs are ineffective, not big enough, corrupt, or all of the above.

If recycling centers were established and could be run profitably I am sure more people would collect and sell plastic to the recycle centers.

The question becomes, is recycling of plastic profitable? The folks that live and work in and around the large landfills (dumps) must be profiting somehow.

Anti littering campaigns and signs are beginning to appear along the Panamericana and on major highways throughout Mexico, Central and South America. Enforcement is not happening....

Hugh fines are threatened in the United States and Canada for littering with enforcement, and this seems to have some effect.

As an example, over landers reading here could send suggestions that might begin to solve the problem to corporate CEOs who bottle/wrap their products in plastic.

I imagine hugh steel coca cola bottle shaped and painted containers used to collect plastic . This would serve as product promotion and give corporations a greener image. The bottles could have trap door bottoms and could be lifted and opened over available dump trucks for transport to established recycle centers. What we need are creative ideas that would enable people to profit from participating in the recycle process.

For that matter the dump trucks could sport product advertising and be donated by the corporations selling products in plastic bottles/containers.

I don't really like the idea of a horizon featuring hugh coca cola bottle collecting points, but that might be better than seeing the raw windblown litter. I remember in Spain the signs shaped like big black bulls on hill tops along major highways - advertising something or other. One gets used to them.

Of course the challenges of living in some countries are so great that preventing litter is not high on the agenda. This sometimes is overlooked by people coming from countries with safety nets that provide adequate food, shelter and medical care for the chronically poor and unemployed.

What is needed are ideas that describe workable systems that make recycling profitable for the people, corporations and governments.

We have well traveled, creative people wandering the HUBB and have perspectives on this issue based upon successes observed worldwide.

Ideas? Let's not forget that the we have a State of Texas sized mass of litter, mostly plastic, floating in the middle of the Pacific Ocean..... Whats up with that?

xfiltrate

Not true. These days you will even find plastic waste on some remote Islands without any people :(

Too many to mention unfortunately :(

May surprise people but Bali is a real dump, in Lovina I saw people just emptying trash bags into ditches and bushes.

Backyard
 

Where can they take their trash?

Ancient history here in our own backyard, near as 1950-'70, in rural areas everyone had a trash pile. Usually some ditch, some dating back a few generations.
When these are found today we gleefully excavate them for treasures of the past.

Few years ago I worked on a bridge in Fairbanks. On one end was an old dump, I found old bottles, shoes, clothes, mule and horse shoes with ice cleats dating from early gold mining days. All treasures.

If there were not organized clean ups of the US highways constantly, there would be piles of trash everywhere. Some are done under armed guard.
I have been on I-10 in Tucson when it looked like the backstreets of Tijuana, where I am right now.

People here in TJ go out every day and sweep in front of their house, cleaning up the trash from the night before. In the early morning the homeless (a lot of deportees from the US) go through the trash looking for value, bottles, cans, etc.

Maybe when the vote comes up again for local container laws, some of our support could be used.

So I try not to judge the trash on the roads as I travel by my skewed standard. ?c?

Yep, the last few posts have expressed my own thoughts when I nominated Belgium.
Because the good folks of that country would say that they are part of the civilised world and yet they either allow their pooches to provide a health hazard for their children or they turn a blind eye to the act; in short, they have choices to make.

You don´t want to visit the place of one of my many SIL´s ..... just saying. :oops2:

I believe that Indians haven't worked out what rubbish is bio degradable quickly and what will be around for the next 50 to 100 years, 50 years ago you could through out the bag you got your food in (paper) and it was gone in a month, the same with cups - the old fashioned clay cups on the railways would degrade in quickly too.

Now with the introduction of plastic, and the same old habits it is creating a horrible ugly mess!

bet this is the same in South America too!

Still only a few billion people to teach not to litter :-/

+1 Kayjay, that's why I live in montana USA

This is just my personal opinion after traveling in poor areas where there isn't a garbage truck that comes around regularly;

Two words of advice if you don't like the way people treat their country, stay home. Save your criticisms of other countries for a more appropriate venue such as "cruises international of the rich and famous" .

I don't see criticisms here Bill as much as just observations with a bit of comment and color tossed in.

Sure, you can stay home ... I'd rather be out there learning ... and in some cases ... teaching or at the very least, helping with financial support through legit channels (very few).

This exchange of ideas ... and smiles may even promote world PEACE!
Who knows? :D

I heard this same story in Indonesia. People used to store their food on biodegradable things (like leafs etc). When you dropped that to the ground, it disappeared really fast. Now you can see only plastic.

For me plastic is just too cheap. There should be some sort of "waste tax" included, so that people would think alternative options...

Plastic is good for some things, but bad for others...

Only one? I have heard that there are actually three plastic swirls in Pacific ocean.
Checked this and looks like there is one in Pacific and two others in other oceans http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_P..._garbage_patch

This is a very serious thing. Really sad! I heard a good radio Docu on the subject. All this plastic is honestly risking the future of our Oceans, killing them off ... and everything that lives in the Ocean.

Once the Oceans are gone ... humans are gone too. There is so little awareness of this. Sounds like it's time for a WORLD effort to clean up the garbage at sea! This is something we can actually do ... unlike Global Warming ... which is NOW TOO LATE TO REVERSE. :oops2:

BTW, California and many US states charge a deposit for ALL ALU or plastic
containers. This is not new here ... at least 20 years old. There are recycling centers in most counties and cities where they BUY BACK Alu and plastic containers and then recycle it. This is a BIG BUSINESS!!

Here in California many poor and homeless survive collecting and then selling the plastic/Alu containers.

Also, now in parts of California and other states plastic bags are now OUT LAWED! NO MORE! :D:D

Now, most people bring in their own re-usable bags to the store. If you have no bag ... they sell you a paper bag or re-usable plastic bag.

Liter: Here, like much of the developed world, there is a HUGE fine for tossing liter out of your car. I think it's $1000 here. Tiny steps, but steps nonetheless. We could be doing a LOT MORE! :(

I remember reading an account of some guys travelling through the sahara. they stopped to look at some site of rock art and someone else that was there threw some rubbish on the floor.When they were admonished for it their response was 'why would I worry, I'm not coming here again'

As long as there are nobbers like that in the world, we haven't got a chance

The Adelphi Hotel in Liverpool. I shit you not, one of the dirtiest hotels I've ever stayed in!!

about hotels...
 

About Hotels that must have been the hotel in Balakan, Azerbajzan. It's quite a few years ago now, so things will have changed.

The room hadn't seen any water for the last I don't know how many years. There was a pile in the toilet, everything was black and grubby (I mean everything).

Some people on the street new about the state of the rooms. They tought it was unacceptable for us to stay in that place and offerd us to stay in their home. We gladly accepted. All without common language.

I don't know where I seen it, but it was a novelty bin. More like a goal netting by some traffic light's. More or less throw your rubbish in to the goal and a light show's goal. You would be surprised just how much was going in to the net. Bin men round empty netting, re set goal. A few more of them around and the place would be cleaner.
John933

My personal first prize for the most dirty and rubbished - up countries on the planet goes to....

Russia!

Not that it is actually the country with the most feces and plastic bags per sq mile along the highways, (Cambodia, India or Bangladesh get that prize), but Russia is the country where the people should KNOW better, and a country with huge resources where there IS money for garbage trucks, education and sanitation.

If you ride the moto along any major highway in Russia, stop and look behind ANY bus stop, it has been used as a latrine, for sure. I took quite a few pix, but posting them here would be tasteless.

If you look for a nice place to pitch your tent for the night in Russia (space enough there surely is) you WILL discover plastic rubbish behind every tree or bush where a local person has been before. The highways have trash stations every few miles where people are supposed to depose their rubbish, but almost always those stations are overflowing so much you can't make out the original containers.

Shame on the Russians! Pretty proud of their culture and education system, but there seems to be something lacking...

I'd vote Thailand as one the nastiest rubbish dumps I've seen.

You don't notice it at first, most folks are reasonably tidy around their homes and shops, sweeping fastidiously.

But lately I've taken to riding the bicycle and from that vantage it's rather shocking how the Thai dump their garbage.

It's interesting to observe how the USA 40-50 years ago had some very active anti-littering TV campaigns. They actually worked IMHO. The USA is relatively litter free.

After Thailand I'd say Argentina is the nastiest. There they are fond of dumping dirty baby diapers at lovely scenic spots. You could just about count on seeing dirty diapers wherever you stopped. Once I passed through Buenos Aires whilst they were having a public worker strike. On every street corner were mountains of garbage, and it stunk to high heaven.

As to the OP's observations of Northern Peru I can't say I'd concur.
I've been through that area a time or two, and litter wasn't so visible.
Ya had to watch for corrupt police, they were waving at you regularly. I'd usually wave back an keep going. Occasionally I'd get trapped in a roadblock and have to show my papers. Speaking modestly fluent Spanish I'd ream the officers a new asshole for harassing tourists.(a good offense is the best defense)

In 1979 whilst diving (working) under a ship in the port of Champa on the Ganges, apart from layers of black slime - god knows what it was made up of it was a filthy silage and rotten rubbish, plastic, leather and wood in the murky waters we also found two very decomposed bodies wrapped in shrouds trapped amongst some metal that had been dumped into the water. not a place for swimming the Ganges. !

Jake.

Wow! Ganges must have been a real sewer...:nuke:
It is still dirty, but should be cleaner than earlier.

A bog in Goa, I kid you not I opened the door and nearly spewed, it was a squat that had obviously become blocked at some distant point in time but that hadnt put off about another fifty people from taking a ship in there and just adding to the mountain of excrement.

The mound of turd was level with my waste!!! they must have been some brave tall folk who helped shape that peice of arese art.

Taking the overnight train into Bombay was also an eye opener, as you get nearer to the city centre all the locals walk out to the railway lines and take their morning dump!! it's like welcome to Mumbai see a thousand bums before breakfast!!

then again the bogs at glastonburry aint much cop either!!:scooter:

Most of Indonesia is a dump. I never once went for a swim in the whole of the country when we cycled there. I saw what was in the rivers feeding the sea.

India is beyond filthy in parts, I think that'll always be the worst in terms of plastic benig dumped everywhere. Someone said that it's due to the culture, i.e. old India before the economic changes caught up to her, had only organic waste so what was thrown away would always certainly be hoovered up by the cows, donkeys, etc, that graze all over urban areas. With the advent of plastics, the property of the waste changed but not the culture.

As for South America, Chile and Argentina are pretty okay but anywhere in closeness to urban zones will have apparently been visited by many freelance binmen, it's just feckless laziness and I hate it. Peru was the worst in this respect, I saw a bog literally dumped with a load of other crap in a national park, I was going to take a picture, but didn't even bother stopping. How sad.

But let's not forget Europe would be a dump if it were not for extensive campaigns by government, and local authorites who clean up after flytipppers. Likewise, we just sell much of our waste and dump it elsewhere, for little kids to shift through in China or Africa, etc. USA dumped tons of radioactive waste in barrels right off their ships, apparrently tens of thousands of tons, right up until the 80's. When I see all this crap by the side of the road, it's hard not to think of how many used oil filters, plasitc containers of oil, air filters, tires, tubes, etc, I've gone through just in a year out here. :(

Well you must have plenty of trash over there Kayjay because you have quite a few inhabitants in your country....:innocent:

The dirtiest place I have ever been to is Kathmandu in Nepal...:thumbdown:

There is rubbish everywhere & on sidewalks & street corners, in the road & propped up outside buildings (mainly street shops).
The people seem to have no comprehension of tidiness, & have a disinterest in making their environment look better.
There is a river running through part of the city that has more rubbish in it than my local City trash dump here in Branson!:(

Pakistan
 

I've been into Peru, yes the north is sort of dirty with rubbish, India is filthy too but nothing in my mind beats filth of Pakistan. The buildings are dirty, the streets are dirty, even some of the cooks in roadside cafes are dirty. The walls of hotels are dirty, the appliances are dirty.

The streets are dirty due to lack of infrastructure but there is no excuse for simple things like beds, light switches, toilets etc being filthy.

Parts of India can be like that too.

Its nothing to do with poverty, it just needs soap and water. Contrast with central america where people arent exactly rich but the streets are swept cleaner than many places in Europe. They take pride in where they live.

On another note, I was looking to place a wrapper in India. I asked some local who said throw it on the street, I ended up having mild argument why the place was a tip. His response was "the government should do something". In reply, I was annoyed and told him that "No. You people should do something"!

enough of my waffle ... just my opinion and how I saw it.

"Have a good day with no pollution" Huanchaco, Perú
 

No littering
No fires
No camping
No pissing
No pooping
No animals
No eating on the beach
No alcohol
No glass
No loud noise

shaggings allright then:clap:

Chem Trails
 

Conspiracy Guy - Chemtrails - YouTube

xfiltrate eat, drink and ... but not in Huanchaco, Peru

More on CHEMTRAILS pollution
 

http://youtu.be/yZFNJplylns
In case you missed my last post entitled chem trails

xfiltrate

Xfiltrate
The heavy spraying seems to be in the Northwestern States and Southern Canada also in western Europe including England.I did not see many chemtrails in Central America, Morocco or southern Mexico. I have been travelling on the bike for a couple years now and have seen these first hand.
The first video you posted tells the story of how most people view this form of pollution.

Djibouti africa

I have tried to hold back....
 

Trond B. and I drove through Albania late '08. It was shocking, not just the rubbish thrown out and trodden on, plastic bags hanging in most fence and trees, broken objects everywhere, but the people too.
Barefoot village kids in the rain throwing stuff at us, drunk man mugged in a crwded park, petrol station scams, intense industrial pollution. Really unhygenic food prearation - we saw roadside slaughter, meat on display with no precautions, filthy kitchens, filthy latrines. I hope it has changed now.
OK, Afrika and Asia and South America have their bad sides, this is apparently EU candidate.
For sheer wretchedness, filth and poverty, has to be Bombay slums.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lqtv34fXdog

Safe travels

Peter, in Oslo