Having enjoyed New Year’s Eve in Aruba it is now clear that we do not clean up our own messes, we expect others to do it. The local kindergarten curriculum must totally ignore the chapter dealing with cleanup.
Hundreds of revelers flocked to the beaches and when they were done, they left everything neatly, on the side, to be picked up.
By whom?
Who is supposed to pick up the trash left behind so carelessly, on Eagle Beach & Arashi??
As if our Minister of the Environment isn’t busy enough, but we are in dire need of a mega-campaign teaching people, “You Drank It, You Take the Empties With You,” modeled after “You Break it, You Pay For It,” in retail stores.
It is elementary in Japan. They take their sandwich wrappers, and empties with them, to discard at home, because they cannot discard it elsewhere, it is forbidden.
They have a deep sense of mutual responsibility and will not litter in public, a concept our kindergarten curriculums fail to convey.
I also saw a number of gardeners arriving at Parkietenbos with garden clippings, on January 3rd. No, they were not aware that the dump closed. They don’t read newspapers, they are not on social media, how would they find out?
I called Fantastic Garden to ask what they do with their garden debris. They mulch and compost it. it’s a whole process, but they transport the discarded greens to their grounds and deal with them. They probably sell it as prepared soil to their clients, proving Trash to Cash is a valid concept.
The little gardeners in their beaten up trucks have to learn to charge for their labor, and if they only collected garden green, ECOTECH will accept those for FREE.
For mixed household waste, ECOTECH is charging Awg 192 per ton, weighing the trucks in and out and charging accordingly.
I heard some gripes about before — it was cheaper before. Of course, you dumped your refuse at Parkietenbos, and it just lay there for eternity, without processing.
Now that we have the option to land it at ECOTECH it will be processed.
Wake up everyone and smell the roses. We must pay for trash disposal.
I also heard some gripes about poverty, the locals are poor and cannot afford anything.
There will be 10.000 in the Torch Parade and another 10.000 on the side of the road, drinking and eating. There is a lot of money in Aruba, in the gray economy, we ‘just’ have to realign our priorities.
One last story: I walked at 7am to Arashi on Wednesday. It was a pristine morning. The wooden garbage container wasn’t full, but at its feet lay an open kitchen plastic bag, spilling its guts on the sand.
Honey I said to the brooding Java the Hut, pooled in an arm chair, waiting for tourists to rent his filthy chairs. Mind you it’s 7am.
Honey, I said sweetly, can you pick up the bag and place it in the container?
Jaba the Hut heaved his bulk from the arm chair walked toward me with his finger wagging, to explain why he won’t do it, it is not his job.
So, you want to live in a pigsty, I asked? This is your office, don’t you care?
YOU are a pig he said, and a whore, then he told me to go back into my mother’s vagina.
I don’t know what possessed me and where it came from, but I gave him my best torrent of Papiamento insults back, it felt liberating.
We were both screaming at each other, then I picked up the bag, some bottle caps and two straws and placed the porkeria in the container.
I believe Jaba the Hut skipped kindergarten all together.
