Lots of Negatives

[PICHARDO]

I beg to differ with you. Costs Rica is far, far cleaner than the DR. Large parts of Mexico are really clean, and I found Honduras cleaner on average. Cuba is cleaner, marginally, I think because they have less Styrofoam to throw away.

I as well beg to differ with your statement above, having been and repeatedly gone to Costa Rica, Mexico, Honduras and Cuba, the garbage is much worst than what I find in everyday living in the DR.

There are buildings in San Jose which I wouldn't dare touch with my bare hands/fingers at all.

The problem of DR is that most low income and even middle income hoods see very little reliable garbage pick-up service. Refuse can sit and collect for a long period of time before it gets hauled away.

The DR is like garbage night in NYC, but a week instead of a day of seeing it piled up.

 

[Givadogahome]

Compared to Panama and most if not all of the Central America and Caribbean countries, the DR is far above the filth you so call it.

I dunno, it is pretty bad. I had dinner last week at Adrian Tropical and as you will know you can't really get a better setting held out over the ocean. But it is quite embarrassing to see the first 40' of ocean is just a carpet of plastic and foam, it' really nasty and difficult to ignore when sat above it trying to have a relaxing evening with the better half.

 

[mountainannie]

Compared to Panama and most if not all of the Central America and Caribbean countries, the DR is far above the filth you so call it.

Your words are far more repugnant than any garbage I have come across in the whole DR, including Duquesa....

Picardo.. Try comparing this country with the rest of the Caribbean instead of the rest of Central America. Try comparing it with Costa Rica and the tourist destinations of Mexico which are kept very clean.

Ok.. the first time I traveled to the developing world it was a shock to see all the garbage and I had to talk myself into understanding that they did not understanding that THEY did not understand that plastic did not biodegrade.. that they were used to having only organic garbage which Mother Nature would take care of in weeks. Plastic, after all, only came to us after WW2. But . hey. That was fifty years ago. Time to get with the program.

Now the DR cleans the beachs by raking and takes up all the natural seaweed, all the shells, all the natural beauty. In LT, which is the Atlantic North Coast, they are raking the beach at Punto Poppy and removing the seaweed from around the roots of the palm trees, which hold in the sand, and which then fall over. So there is less and less beach every time I go there.

I do not know the answer to the trash issue. But you are really in denial if you think that this place is not garbage strewn.

Soon the road from Puna Cana to the Zona will be built to welcome all the AI tourists into town and they will all see how ugly the trash is. They are not going to Blue Mall. They are never going to get that far.

 

[PICHARDO]

I dunno, it is pretty bad. I had dinner last week at Adrian Tropical and as you will know you can't really get a better setting held out over the ocean. But it is quite embarrassing to see the first 40' of ocean is just a carpet of plastic and foam, it' really nasty and difficult to ignore when sat above it trying to have a relaxing evening with the better half.

That's a result of a too relaxed Haitian immigration policy. Poor Haitians tend to settle near rivers and creeks in order to have water close by. Sadly, just like in Haiti, they use it as the garbage dumping ground as well. Those creeks and rivers end up releasing all that refuse right out to the coast.

This is NOT the fault of those Haitians but our inept authorities and gov. Green areas should be well protected and kept free from becoming shanty towns.

There's a big difference between street garbage and coastal garbage.

If you visit Costa Rica and Panama, you'll be amazed as to how the garbage in the water and even washing ashore really is there compared to the DR. I was!

Cuba is rapidly becoming a dumpster as disposable wares make their way into small towns which didn't even have a formal dumping facility to begin with, as they pretty much reused everything. Even Havana is much worst than before on my last visit.

 

[mountainannie]

oh please, Picardo. You are now saying that the GARBAGE is all the fault of the Haitians? Believe me. the Haitians do not have enough money to buy those things that are packed in plastic.

 

[frank recktenwald]

I as well beg to differ with your statement above, having been and repeatedly gone to Costa Rica, Mexico, Honduras and Cuba, the garbage is much worst than what I find in everyday living in the DR.

There are buildings in San Jose which I wouldn't dare touch with my bare hands/fingers at all.

The problem of DR is that most low income and even middle income hoods see very little reliable garbage pick-up service. Refuse can sit and collect for a long period of time before it gets hauled away.

The DR is like garbage night in NYC, but a week instead of a day of seeing it piled up.

Pichardo, you don't live here. You might just visit once in awhile and when you do you wear your pink sunglasses.

 

[PICHARDO]

Picardo.. Try comparing this country with the rest of the Caribbean instead of the rest of Central America. Try comparing it with Costa Rica and the tourist destinations of Mexico which are kept very clean.

Ok.. the first time I traveled to the developing world it was a shock to see all the garbage and I had to talk myself into understanding that they did not understanding that THEY did not understand that plastic did not biodegrade.. that they were used to having only organic garbage which Mother Nature would take care of in weeks. Plastic, after all, only came to us after WW2. But . hey. That was fifty years ago. Time to get with the program.

Now the DR cleans the beachs by raking and takes up all the natural seaweed, all the shells, all the natural beauty. In LT, which is the Atlantic North Coast, they are raking the beach at Punto Poppy and removing the seaweed from around the roots of the palm trees, which hold in the sand, and which then fall over. So there is less and less beach every time I go there.

I do not know the answer to the trash issue. But you are really in denial if you think that this place is not garbage strewn.

Soon the road from Puna Cana to the Zona will be built to welcome all the AI tourists into town and they will all see how ugly the trash is. They are not going to Blue Mall. They are never going to get that far.

Seems to me that you need to visit the beaches all around Punta Cana more recently!

As far as raking? That has zero to do with the seaweed and it holding anything in place. Raking is nothing compared to using a heavy equipment to pack and flatten the sand like asphalt like they do in many of the beaches in Mexico and Florida.

Denial? Of what if I may ask? Have I said there's not garbage in the streets of the DR? Have I said there is no garbage in the rivers? Or the coast? The big gap is what you say there is and what I'm tired of seeing in the DR, which still is below what I have seen in each of the places listed here.

Most of you maybe visited, even lived in some or all of the places listed here, but that seems to be on the back haul. I on the other hand, MUST go there on a routinely basis and can tell you is not pretty as before. Each time it gets worst!

My last visit to Isla Mujeres and Venezuela was disheartening! What a dump!
Before that, I used to recommend friends to visit the beautiful Venezuela and Isla Mujeres.

If you get my point.

I hope and wish Robert settles in Colombia soon, which is one of the places I MUST visit more on the last quarter of this year and well until the second quarter of 2014.

It will be great to compare the Colombia he's getting to know to the one I know so well about!

Most people in these forums have seem maybe 5 or 10% at best of the DR, save for a few ones that maybe have seen far more than most Dominicans will see in their natural lives. I have seen pretty much a lot of the DR and a good chunk of the world since young.

 

[PICHARDO]

oh please, Picardo. You are now saying that the GARBAGE is all the fault of the Haitians? Believe me. the Haitians do not have enough money to buy those things that are packed in plastic.

Read again!

 

[JMB773]

But he mentions Panama and there is no attempt at all to clean the beach there. One drives along the Corridor Sur and thescum and slime on the ocean surface is incredible. The sewage from the city flows out to meet the sewage dumped from the ever present line of ships waiting to go thru the canal. Horrible!

Panama is not a country known for its beaches. People do not visit Panama to lay on the beach.

 

[PICHARDO]

Most rivers in Costa Rica can only be called sewage drains. You can take a rafting expedition (with heavy protective gear that is) to see it and smell it first hand!

People visit a beach or two and some campitos in Costa Rica and think they have seen it all or that the whole country is entirely like that little chunk they saw.

 

[caribmike]

That's no excuse to use the beach as a dumpster...

...there goes my Imagination of a Panama cleaner than the DR.

Panama is not a country known for its beaches. People do not visit Panama to lay on the beach.

 

[PICHARDO]

Again, there's no defending the indefensible. Garbage is garbage and there's a problem of it in the DR. But to say it's worst here than most places around? Nope! that ain't the truth!

If the gov protects and keeps the greens clear, the river pollution will stop greatly in the DR. Same if the garbage pick-up is normalize all around the country, mostly in the major cities as small towns are relatively very clean.

 

[Africaida]

Panama is not a country known for its beaches. People do not visit Panama to lay on the beach.

Been with my children to do just that, lay on the beach and amazing ones at that: Bocas del Toro

 

[JMB773]

I as well beg to differ with your statement above, having been and repeatedly gone to Costa Rica, Mexico, Honduras and Cuba, the garbage is much worst than what I find in everyday living in the DR.

There are buildings in San Jose which I wouldn't dare touch with my bare hands/fingers at all.

The problem of DR is that most low income and even middle income hoods see very little reliable garbage pick-up service. Refuse can sit and collect for a long period of time before it gets hauled away.

The DR is like garbage night in NYC, but a week instead of a day of seeing it piled up.

Mexico City alone has just as many people as the entire island of Dominican Republic and this is just the D.F. so I fail to see how you would use Mexico in comapring it to DR with anything. Costa Rica and Dominican Republic are two different worlds. Ticos do not try to leave Costa Rica by any means like Dominicans try to leave DR. Ticos care some what about their own appearance BUT they care for more about the perception of their country . Dominicans do not care as much about their country as Ticos do in Costa Rica.

BTW San Jose is "la Capital" it is NOT the face of Costa Rica most people I talked with at the gate in Houston head to SJO never spends 1 second in San Jose, so I do not understand the comment about the buildings in San Jose. Sure Santo Domingo has more glamor, glitter and gold then San Jose but what else. San Jose IS NOT trying to be a "baby New York City" like Santo Domingo.

 

[dv8]

pichardo, who the heck cares? we live in DR and the apparent rubbish issue is a big deal to us. i do not care other places are cleaner or dirtier. i care that DR is a pigsty.

 

[PICHARDO]

Mexico City alone has just as many people as the entire island of Dominican Republic and this is just the D.F. so I fail to see how you would use Mexico in comapring it to DR with anything. Costa Rica and Dominican Republic are two different worlds. Ticos do not try to leave Costa Rica by any means like Dominicans try to leave DR. Ticos care some what about their own appearance BUT they care for more about the perception of their country . Dominicans do not care as much about their country as Ticos do in Costa Rica.

BTW San Jose is "la Capital" it is NOT the face of Costa Rica most people I talked with at the gate in Houston head to SJO never spends 1 second in San Jose, so I do not understand the comment about the buildings in San Jose. Sure Santo Domingo has more glamor, glitter and gold then San Jose but what else. San Jose IS NOT trying to be a "baby New York City" like Santo Domingo.

And you point after all that ranting was? There was a point to it, right?

 

[JMB773]

Been with my children to do just that, lay on the beach and amazing ones at that: Bocas del Toro

LOL!! Bocas is part of Panama and it is not part of Panama. Bocas is its own world in Panama. Panama is an" investment" haven.

 

[PICHARDO]

pichardo, who the heck cares? we live in DR and the apparent rubbish issue is a big deal to us. i do not care other places are cleaner or dirtier. i care that DR is a pigsty.

Nope! It's not!

Garbage happens! Learn to live with it just like Parisians do and Italians have learned to do...

The glitz of the city or the culture/refinement has zilch to do with garbage problems like the ones faced by the DR. We have people living in green areas and river/creek's banks. We have a lack of private/public refuse companies to deal with the pick-up. We have a many, many problems. But in spite of it all, we care more than you care to know.

 

[dv8]

garbage happens. DR is a pigsty. i live here. you don't.

 

[frank recktenwald]

But he mentions Panama and there is no attempt at all to clean the beach there. One drives along the Corridor Sur and thescum and slime on the ocean surface is incredible. The sewage from the city flows out to meet the sewage dumped from the ever present line of ships waiting to go thru the canal. Horrible!

It's also the Pacific and garbage arrives there from all over the world. Remember what arrived on shore in the USA a year after the disaster in Japan? Do agree that Panama still has a long ways to go in cleaning up their backyard but they have come a long way and the way you do describe it I have never seen that and I used to live in Paitilla right at the shore. They have cleaned up the bay and even the stench you had before on Av Balboa has gone. Just as Africaida said Panama has beautiful and clean beaches, maybe you should visit more of the country than just hanging out in the bars.