Chile Forum

A couple months ago as my wife and I were driving through the countryside where stunning natural beauty is occasionally spoiled by littering, I told her: "you know what would be great here where there's a littering problem and everything seems to find a private sponsor: Adopt a Highway."

Well, weren't we surprised to see last weekend that cleanliness on the road between ConCon and Quntero is now sponsored by Chilevision. The road was not squeaky clean, but it's a start. Off course this doesn't replace education and fines to try and change attitudes about littering, but I thought it was interesting. It does recognize that littering is a problem and it's nicer to drive on a clean road.

My hubby and I had the same thought AND we were driving that same stretch last week and noticed things looking cleaner. Hurray. We live right on F30-E near Campiche/Ventanas. We walk the ditch out front on both sides up and down our property line every other week picking up TONS of trash. We get looked at like we are crazy for doing so. But things will change and folks will start to pick up litter. This is a beautiful country...let's all do our part to clean it up and keep it clean.

I'm so glad to see even a minor movement towards keeping Chile beautiful. As a child growing up in California, I remember the campaigns on TV: "Keep America Beautiful", "Give a hoot, don't pollute". I've often wished the Chilean Government would start the educational process via TV and classrooms that we had here in the US. It will take an entire generation to see the results. But well worth the effort in such a lovely country as Chile. Also, as long as I'm posting about "Chile Lindo", how about locking up the spray paint and forbidding the sale to minors?

Texas also uses community service to pick up trash as part of their punishment for small-time criminal offenses.

John

I'm resurrecting and slightly renaming (not sure if it will really work) an old thread as it sort of follows...

Has anyone else noticed any recent efforts around Chile to clean things up? I have two examples to share from here in the north.

1 - The Copiapo municipality has recently introduced big "container bins" (bad description, but the best I can think of - refer to photo) that are scattered around the central part of the city. I reckon there are at least 4 per block, sometimes more. A fantastic idea that would appear to be aimed at keeping the scavenging dogs from ripping open the bags and redistributing the contents around the city. However, like many(?) things here, the great idea is not so well executed. The bins are located to either block the footpath or take up a car parking space. The bonus to date - these areas seem cleaner and perhaps even a few less dogs hanging around? We'll see how it all goes over the next few months.



2 - For anyone who has arrived to or left from Antofagasta via the northern access out to Ruta 5 over the last x (unknown quantity) years, you couldn't have helped notice the extraordinarily large stretch of road where rubbish was dumped. I'm sure it wasn't the case, but it looked like the town rubbish dump. Anyway, passing through there the other day, there is a heap of work going on that has involved cleaning up the area such that now, it is almost spotless, to the point where I thought I must be on the wrong road.

Let's hope this is at least a regional trend, if not a national one.