Burning Smell at Night in Las Terrenas

[Will_Green]

http://www.dr1.com/forums/environment/74035-waste-waste-wate-waste-waste-waste.html

The Green Team

Thanks, Joe. From the second article: "The shocking conclusion: burning about 10 pounds of household trash a day may produce as much air pollution as a modern, properly controlled (i.e., following US emission rules fully) incinerator burning 400,000 pounds of trash a day! "

Incredible. I've never been an environmentalist type, but the scope of the problem is beginning to be apparent!

 

[bilko]

I understand why they burn their garbage but why let the fire smolder for hours afterwards.

 

[cobraboy]

I understand why they burn their garbage but why let the fire smolder for hours afterwards.

Because it hasn't finished burning.

We had a neighbor that waited until the wind blew away from his house to burn garbage. Unfortunately about 40% the time that meant to our house. Just aweful.

But it was better than rotting garbage close by causing all sorts of problems with rats, flies, street dogs and other critters.

Welcome to a developing nation, things are different here...

 

[Criss Colon]

"Will", you have a lot to learn about life, and living in the DR!
Adapt, or die.
Or do what the "Un Adaptable" do, move on to a place that is civilized.
"Foreigners", Don't Vote!
The government doesn't care!
You can complain as long, and hard as you care, but they don't, "Care" that's it!
I like it that way, but then I did two and a half "Tours" in Vietnam during the war!
The DR, "Money TALKS, Bull$hit" Walks"!
Sad but true!
You might try sleeping with a "HEPA Filter, tight fitting respirator on nights when the "Burning" is heaviest.
I am old, so I don't care, I'll be dead before lung cancer can kill ME, But I have 4 children I worry about constantly.
Not just air pollution, but water, food,noise, and even medicine!
Always drink, brush teeth, and cook, and wash dishes, and maybe your clothes, with bottled water, preferably imported.
As far as bathing goes, we use those big 5 gal. plastic bottles, but I worry about cancer causing chemicals leaching out of the plastic!!!
They use a lot of fertilizer, and pesticides, here on the farms, and inject most livestock with antibiotics, and/or growth
hormones.
Welcome to "Paradise", as long as you don't eat,drink,bath, or BREATH!!!!
Cris Colon

 

[Will_Green]

Chris - I understand where you're coming from, but adapting to a detrimental/hazardous situation will at best ensure that the status quo continues, or at worst, that things will get worse. This pessimistic attitude isn't ideal for your kids, you, me, or anyone else.

In your post, you said that money talks. I think "money walks" is more to the point, because if the money starts to leave, local agencies will listen. Foreigners vote with their cash, which can count for quite a bit, if enough of them do it. Also, as others pointed out, it seems a lot of the locals are unaware of the dangers of burning plastic. Raising awareness sounds like a good first step; it won't change things overnight, but it's a start. Letting foreigners know about the problem will make them think twice about buying property and vacationing here until the issue is addressed.

 

[cobraboy]

Chris - I understand where you're coming from, but adapting to a detrimental/hazardous situation will at best ensure that the status quo continues, or at worst, that things will get worse. This pessimistic attitude isn't ideal for your kids, you, me, or anyone else.

In your post, you said that money talks. I think "money walks" is more to the point, because if the money starts to leave, local agencies will listen. Foreigners vote with their cash, which can count for quite a bit, if enough of them do it. Also, as others pointed out, it seems a lot of the locals are unaware of the dangers of burning plastic. Raising awareness sounds like a good first step; it won't change things overnight, but it's a start. Letting foreigners know about the problem will make them think twice about buying property and vacationing here until the issue is addressed.

No offense, but your argument shows you haven't experienced the DR for very long.

The DR is VASTLY cleaner than just a few short years ago.

Progress is being made. It's a "work in process."

If the mounds of garbage in the past hasn't slowed tourism nothing current will. And the DR is hardly desperate for expat input. That just do NOT care, even if your hair is on fire.

 

[Criss Colon]

"Time-In-Country" will cure your "optimism"!
Just "ASK"!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Wanna bring the "Narco State" future into your argument????
Drugs, not Burning Garbage, will kill the DR's tourism industry.
As it's doing right now.
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[pollogringo]

And then some Dominicans will tell you it's the Haitians doing voodoo. Especially if it smells like burning avian plumage.

 

[Criss Colon]

Using Condoms with no lubrication?????????
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Never Mind, "Dominicanos" never use condoms !

 

[Koreano]

Is DR getting ready for big weekend or what?

Its been second day that I got greeted with garbage smell. And I think it's still burning. I had coffee but I decided to skip morning cigarettes just because the smoke in side of the building.

 

[Lothario666]

Is DR getting ready for big weekend or what?

Its been second day that I got greeted with garbage smell. And I think it's still burning. I had coffee but I decided to skip morning cigarettes just because the smoke in side of the building.

You gotta love the D.R., free smoking.....



"R"

 

[london777]

I've never been an environmentalist type, but the scope of the problem is beginning to be apparent!

This is the most telling sentence in this thread. Most people aren't "environmentalist types" so long as it is someone else's problem, some other countries' problem, some later generation's problem. But when the problem starts affecting their own comfort, their own health, and their own property values the "scope of the problem" magically begins "to be apparent". Unfortunately most such problems cannot be tackled economically, and many cannot be tackled at all, on a piecemeal local and reactive basis. They need national and often international education, legislation and enforcement. They will only be effectively solved when we are all "environmentalist types".

The underlying problem here is lack of education. Nothing else can be put right in this country until Dominicans generally receive adequate education and the brightest receive decent higher education. And that is two generations away.

 

[cobraboy]

This is the most telling sentence in this thread. Most people aren't "environmentalist types" so long as it is someone else's problem, some other countries' problem, some later generation's problem. But when the problem starts affecting their own comfort, their own health, and their own property values the "scope of the problem" magically begins "to be apparent". Unfortunately most such problems cannot be tackled economically, and many cannot be tackled at all, on a piecemeal local and reactive basis. They need national and often international education, legislation and enforcement. They will only be effectively solved when we are all "environmentalist types".

The underlying problem here is lack of education. Nothing else can be put right in this country until Dominicans generally receive adequate education and the brightest receive decent higher education. And that is two generations away.

It's not just a lack of education, although that's a part of the equation, for sure.

It's also economics. The DR just doesn't have the money to allocate for proper waste handling and disposal, along with water and sewage treatment, land use policies, etc.

Those things cost money, and lot's of it. The First World talkes such things for granted and projects what worked back home...without really understanding the full costs of such luxuries...should be implemented here.

As a high-level DR environmentalist once lamented to me personally, "Envirronmentalism is the domain of the wealthy"...and he's correct.

 

[flyinroom]

I remember rising early in the morning and heading out into the day.
I remember the dampness not yet burned from the air and the acrid stench that came along with...It crept into my nasal cavity and there it lingered. The haze floated in the mist and the sense of being surrounded on all sides was awful.
Nowhere to turn,
Nowhere to hide.
The odour has settled on my hair, my clothes and there it will stay until the scorching heat of the sun burns it away.
I remember spotting some of the spots that were burning the trash.....Landfill, everybody said.
That is just the way it is.
But what about the water table, all that trash piling up
day after day after day..........and leaking down, trickling down, down, down into the earth.
Two birds with one stone...........
Hotel has place to drop it's trash and future land owners will have land to build on....
Arghhh..........
Drifting off into the darkness in a high state of agitation..
I can see the discards of a day in the life....
All the kitchen trash, putrifying and rotting alike.
I try to block it, but it won't be stopped.....the contents of all those wastebaskets in all those rooms..
The oozed out discharges of all those bodily orifaces in toilet paper, kleenex....
Old tin cans that will fill with rain water and drip, drip, drip,
Styrofoam containers smeared and stained with grease and all those chicken bones...
Stop !!
Por Dios !!!!

I remember rising early in the morning and heading out into the day.


flyinroom,
ElCortecito,
1995.


No, it is not something new.

 

[pollogringo]

It's not just a lack of education, although that's a part of the equation, for sure.

It's also economics. The DR just doesn't have the money to allocate for proper waste handling and disposal, along with water and sewage treatment, land use policies, etc.

Those things cost money, and lot's of it. The First World talkes such things for granted and projects what worked back home...without really understanding the full costs of such luxuries...should be implemented here.

As a high-level DR environmentalist once lamented to me personally, "Envirronmentalism is the domain of the wealthy"...and he's correct.

All true. In the US, taxes pay for infrastructure and, in many municipalities, waste management.

 

[flyinroom]

What comes first?
The chicken or the egg?

 

[Criss Colon]

Being "POOR" is not an excuse to be a "PIG"!
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[pollogringo]

Being "POOR" is not an excuse to be a "PIG"!
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True. But it's a fact that trash is a magnet for more trash. Studies show that pedestrians are less inclined to litter on pristine streets and grounds.

 

[Criss Colon]

I throw all my trash in the streets here!
I try to respect Dominican culture!
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[flyinroom]

True. But it's a fact that trash is a magnet for more trash. Studies show that pedestrians are less inclined to litter on pristine streets and grounds.

Hold on a minute.
You are mixing two very different issues.
Littering and wholesale disposal of trash are not the same.
One is the little guy too ignorant to know the difference and the other is Mr. Big who solves his problem with zero regard for the problem he creates for others by his actions.
We have the right to expect more from Mr. Big, don't we?