Why litter?: Central America's troubling problem

Jairo and I sauntered across a small bridge in Masaya, Nicaragua on our way to his hometown of La Curva.  I noticed trash that had nearly brought the waterway beneath us to a halt.  Looking at me, Jairo shrugged and then looked at the trash disparagingly.  He had already answered all of the questions to visiting Americans that he knew I was about to hurl at him.  He knew Nicaragua had a severe problem with trash disposal and littering.  But as one man, he couldn't educate and potentally sway people into being more responsible with their trash.  

A waterway in Masaya, Nicaragua

During our bus ride down to La Curva, I saw two people sitting right in front of me pull down the windows of the chickenbus and casually throw trash out of the window of the moving bus; nobody in the bus seemed to care.  I saw a young child thoughtlessly toss his candy wrapper on the street in Tegucigalpa, Honduras; his mother did not seem to mind.  I saw various people toss non-disposable items out of the bus from Tegucigapla to Gracias; no one even took a second look.  It was acceptable.  

A stream running through a neighborhood in central Tegucigalpa

An average street in Gracias, Honduras

The side of the roads and highways in Central America are littered with trash.  Trash is enterring the waterways and thus the water-supply.  Trash is altering the way the environment interacts and counteracts with itself.  However, no one seems to care.  Nobody seems to even notice.  Maybe I am have become more aware of our treatment of the earth on my current trip, but the seemingly indifferent attitude towards littering in Central America is very troubling.  In the United States, society as a whole is reasonably responsible when littering is concerned.  People know the issues that arise from irresponsible trash disposal.  Children are taught the correct way to dispose of trash from a very young age.    

Why are there such discrepencies concerning trash disposal between the United States and Central America?  I think I might have a couple of potential answers.  First, the United States basically invented and continues to mass-produce trash!  Most of the trash that is thrown out of the window of Central American buses is sold by American companies.  Bags of Doritios?  They are made by Frito-Lay, an American food company.  Bottles of Dasani water?  They are produced by The Coca-Cola Company, another American-based company.  Since these products were developed and produced in America, the United States knows how to use and dispose of the products better than most other countries.  

Second, Europe is the originator of modern-day trash.  Remember reading about the Industrial Revolution?  That was basically all Europe.  Over the centuries, Europeans learned to dispose of their trash in a responsible manner.  Many Americans have been brought-up in a European-centric culture.  On the other side of the coin, most of the citizens of Central American countries are descended from people indigenious to America.  They have only recently been introduced to non-descomposting trash by way of the Americans and Europeans in the past generation or two.  

Rio Choluteca, a major river running through Tegucigapla

Unfortanately, because of general pollution, the global population has recently enterred a period of extreme change and potential disatrous affects, be that in terms of climate change or damage to the waterways and environment.  I don't want to downplay America and Europe's contribution to these problems; they both have horrendous records.  But Central America needs to fix their littering problem soon if we are going to have any chance of saving our world for many generations to come.