A scientific approach to garbage

I wonder how the inhabitants of the Wild West disposed of their trash. I mean, the States and California in particular weren't always so clean, were they? (I heard there are cleaner places in the world and I heartily believe it is possible, but trust me, compared to today's Armenia, even Downtown LA looks spotless.)

Okay, I can understand and identify several problems that make the country look so messy. Problem number one – irregular pick up and old garbage containers without lids/covers. The trash gets a chance to be spilled, blown out by the wind or be dragged around by stray cats and dogs before an ancient truck comes and dumps the containers into its bowels.

Problem number two – not enough trash bins. You can walk miles with your apple core or water bottle and not see a single trash receptacle anywhere to put it in! The only exception is the center (and a few and far in between well-developed zones) of the capital where the municipality actually took pains to place brand new trash bins. Some of them were plastic, which was also a problem: whether by an accident (un-extinguished cigarette butts) or by purpose, many of them were burned along with the contents.

Problem number three - the recycling in Armenia is either non-existent (plastic, some metals) or is not properly set up. Armenians are very good at reducing and especially reusing things – everything from cars to shoes gets a second, third and forth life, gets repaired and refitted endlessly, moving from the capital to the most distant suburbs and rural areas, where it continues serving long after the first owner has dumped it. But recycling is a problem. The plastic bottles and bags, tin cans, juice and milk cartons, papers, tires and what-nots produced by the human society are littering the most beautiful landscapes, hiding under the trees and shrubs on hiking trails, swimming in the rivers and streams, get blown up the trees and down the holes, and stay there for a very, very, very long time. The only alternative is burning them, which is only partly effective (metal doesn't burn) and has side effects (it stinks and pollutes the air). There seems to be no recycling for old automobiles, either, so they are just dumped somewhere out of the way (like, in a middle of some pretty landscape) or just left to slowly decompose right where their last parking spot happened to be. I am sure if someone bothered to collect and recycle all those, he would be rich in no time!

Problem number four - and the most serious one – is ignorance. Most people just don’t have enough information. They don’t know that the acrid smoke caused by burning plastic is bad for one’s health. They never learned what non-biodegradable means. They don’t even appreciate the beauty of nature enough to keep it clean. Last week Roxy and I were visiting Ohanavan, a site of a beautiful XIII century church by a deep, lush green river gorge surrounded by mountains. There, I got into conversation with a local woman a little older that me. She was very concerned about the fact that the locals dump trash on or around the church premises (probably because she had a little business selling fruit and sweets to the tourists, and trash made the place less appealing for them). “I keep telling everyone – go a little farther and dump your trash into the gorge, at least it will be out of the view” – complained she. Unfortunately for her and other villagers, they don’t realize that out of sight doesn’t always mean out of mind, that the plastic water bottles and bags, beer cans and bottle caps will outlive her and her children, poison the river and the soil, and that it is easier to clean the church premises than the steep cliffs down the gorge.

There seem to be a campaign for a clean city going on right now. Every once in a while there are also “community work Saturdays”, so called subbotniks, when school kids and a few adults get together and with scarcely any enthusiasm clean several sites. This is good, but not enough!

So how did they transitioned from Wild West into clean California?