God Created Nature Garbage-Free (First Steps in Honduras)

by FERENC IVANICS
On the last mile in Guatemala we had to make a choice: many miles in El Salvador and a few in Honduras, or many miles in Honduras and none in El Salvador. We took the second choice. We found out looking at the online maps that Honduras has many high mountains and we will zig-zag around them. We changed our quetzals to Honduran lempiras (there's no official change rate at the border, and if you are a "tourist" then, you know...), and we headed for Ocotepeque. While walking mildly uphill we discovered something.


There's no such thing in Honduras as waste-management or waste-transport. But what's really scared us was that people didn't really think that it would be nice to have something like that. There's garbage everywhere: in the streams, in the valleys, at the side of the road, and yes, in the private yards of their houses. And they say this is their waste-management, their collect garbage in small piles. Many small piles.


And don't be surprised: in Honduras everything is wrapped in plastic. Biscuits in the biscuit bag are wrapped individually, we've seen soft drinks of less than 2 ounces (50 ml), all packed nicely in plastic. In almost all the diners you see plastic plates, forks and knives. There's plastic waste virtually everywhere. And high mountains, of course. But I'll save that for next time.