Globetrotters

When you toss your trash do you stop to think where the garbage goes? Neither did we until we moved here. Now we know exactly where it ends up….about ½ mile up the road at the local “landfill” a misnomer for the burning field of toxic trash!

Yes that’s right-BURN BABY BURN-Panama’s approach to waste ‘’management’. Of course they burn mostly at night so the noxious fumes aren’t quite as conspicuous. Unless of course you’re a poor Panamanian with no A/C, sleeping with the windows open! Many residents here have reported being sick for a few days after a particularly poisonous night burn-tires, plastic, etc.-all go up in smoke.

I discovered these photos recently on the Reuter wire:
http://lite.alertnet.org/thenews/pictures/PAN04.htm
How sad that they focus on ‘extreme poverty’ when the truth is that extreme pollution will kill residents with carcinogens before starvation does!
We’ve never seen the abject poverty which spawns eating garbage here in Panama….more likely dump ‘divers’ scavenging gringo goodies to re-sell!
Although we live in a rural area, trash disposal fares just as badly in the cities. Right now Panama City struggles with a garbage problem that has heaps of trash lining the streets of certain areas where it’s been collected & dumped.
http://www.thepanamanews.com/pn/v_16/issue_05/editorial.html
Excerpted from the above article:
“The cultural change of ending a throw-away mentality and culture of littering is a longer-term job. Recycling is another important city effort, which must be accompanied by a public education campaign to be effective. We need to reduce the input of solid wastes, which is a job for the national government but should be a cause led by the mayors, who should be demanding deposits on bottles and cans, charges per bag at grocery stores to encourage people to bring their own bags or baskets, incentives or edicts to reduce extra packaging materials that go with retail products. We need to look at regulations that reduce the volume of packaging materials that can neither be reused nor recycled.”
Well said & happily by the Panamanian press itself!
When we first moved here, I approached a Panamanian reporter about my horror at the toxic trash burning. He replied “That’s how we do it here.”

One day Hans & I drove out of Playa Blanca & stared with shock at a Panamanian flag flying proudly over the dump, with clouds of black poisonous smoke rising behind it. What a photo op we missed! National pride in polluting the environment & poisoning their people? It’s good to read another perspective in the Panamanian news for sure!
In my research on the Internet I’ve read about expats’ struggles with trash disposal in all areas of Panama-apparently they haven’t figured out the Panamanian solution of simply burning it all! It’s surprising to us, after reading so much about Panama’s image, touting itself as a modern 1st world country. Burning trash is so 3rd world! It reminds us of traveling through Africa 30 years ago!

But then maybe not? In my searches I discovered this site:
http://www.onepennysheet.com/2010/04/europe-finds-cleaner-energy-source-by-burning-trash/

A great article about an incinerator used in Denmark that burns trash & produces jobs & cheap electricity in the process! What about the pollution? The filters on the plant are so efficient (& constantly monitored) that the air emitted is cleaner than most fireplace fumes! WOW!

Another option is The McMullen Process
http://mpatenergy.com

Roger McMullen states “MPAT absorbs heat and destroys even Dioxin and PCBs. INCINERATION IS EXOTHERMAL ….MPAT IS ENDOTHERMAL “

It’s all Greek to me as far as the chemistry goes BUT rumor has it that he offered his services to Panama City & was refused! What’s up with THAT? How does it reflect on Panama’s commitment to a greener environment? What commitment? We can’t even recycle here, as we’ve done for the past 30 years. We strive to use as little plastic as possible but modern packaging thwarts our efforts. Every time we toss a wrapper, bag or bottle we know we’ll be breathing in the burnt aroma soon-YUCK!

Local officials are working to move the dump away from here, but where to & in what form? Will they simply move the burning fields or will they invest in modern technology & recycling efforts as the Panama News article suggests?

Last week we were invited on another outing with our festive family. As we stood in the yard, gathering the troops for action, Juventino beamed at me with a smile even bigger & brighter than usual & announced “Soy muy rico.” (I am very rich.)

I knew exactly what he meant but I doubt if many Americans would look at his humble house hewn from his beloved wood by his own hands & see the wealth within.

He went on to tell us how lucky he felt to have such a happy, healthy family, his woodworking shop that he loved, & to be able to enjoy each moment of his day.

Wise words!

I began to question our rigid ‘more is better’ materialistic approach to life while traveling in Africa some 30 years ago. So called ‘poor people’ had so much more joy & laughter in their lives than many well off people I knew! Why?

Then I saw a movie called “Sugar Cane Alley” which captured this ability to enjoy life despite extreme poverty. I told a good friend to go watch it but she walked out in the middle of it, calling it a ‘fairy tale approach to poverty.’ How would she know since she’d never been poor, nor had she ever visited a Third World country? Yet many of you might feel the same…

I decided to research ‘poverty in Panama’ on the web & came across the article below. It’s not my intention to glorify poverty but merely to challenge your perspective & perhaps broaden your view of what makes us ‘rich’ or ‘poor’.

If you’re lucky, after reading it you too may count your blessings!

You may also decide to donate to a great group supporting the ecology & economy of our local area right here-check it out:

http://www.sustainableharvest.org/

A donation of just $25 can make a world of difference!

Occasionally, income does not provide a true indication of rich and poor and a quality lifestyle can be defined differently.
BY ROBERT E. BAKER
While Panama is experiencing better than 8 percent growth and our future looks brighter than ever, a foreign visitor recently lambasted Panama regarding our level of poverty and warned that we had better watch out because 47 percent of our population lives in poverty. He based this on the low dollar income of almost half of our citizens. Furthermore, while espousing his reactionary values that eluded both interpretation and prophecy, he went on to suggest that Hugo Chavez-type, leftist leaders could be the future result of our 47 percent poverty level.

Food for thought. What is poverty? Is a quality lifestyle accurately measured by each country? To different societies poverty comes in different forms. Is there a yardstick by which we can measure real poverty or should we accept it at face value based on dollars earned? Perhaps if your family cannot afford a car you are considered poor. Others might feel that one less gasoline-burning engine is good for the environment.
It seems that different people in different cultures consider poverty from various viewpoints, some that are socially relevant and others that are not so relevant. If your government can provide you with schools and medical clinics your subsequent lifestyle would be a personal choice. Do you want the big city and what goes with it, such as traffic, congestion, pollution, high prices, etc., or do you want the outlying areas that are quiet and cleaner?

If we measure poor by our monthly income it is obvious that the more developed countries will be richer than those that are still Third World. Some societies make you feel inadequate and shameful if you are poor, as if you do not measure up. Where they live it is not OK to be poor because they see only low incomes and they are blind to other qualities that sometimes abound.

Occasionally, income does not provide a true indication of rich and poor. Some cultures base everything on how much you earn, yet I have often heard it said that you are indeed wealthy if you have a loving family that is healthy. How about the family whose parents are both fast-paced executive superstars working 60 to 80 hours per week and never have time for their children? Could we say that they are good providers, but poor parents? Should the poverty index include quality of life for parents and children? Are poor people sad because they are poor or happy because they have less entrapments?
If you have to walk to school each day, as many of our parents did, does that mean you are poor? There are thousands of children in the countryside of Panama who walk to school every day and they do not consider themselves poor. In fact, they seem quite happy and also appear to be in excellent health. Typically, when they get home from school their mother or father is there waiting for them. In this case, is it good to be poor because you get more quality time with your parents? We might consider the kids of a first-world country who arrive home to an empty house to be poor because they have no mother or father to welcome them with a warm hug and a kiss.

Is it a description of poverty when many of our campesinos feed themselves from their immediate surroundings with fresh mangos, fresh bananas, or papayas or our native fishermen bring home fresh fish for their families to eat? Does that mean they are poor? Should we be ashamed that we cannot afford to buy the less-healthy processed foods at a huge supermarket? Did you know that in some first-world countries the government allows you to legally sell “Fresh Fish”, when it is as much as 22 days old? I don’t think anyone in Panama would eat a 22-day old fish. Do you?

I know several fishermen who live on the Atlantic coast and all of them are considered poor. One is named Raul and he lives with his family in a small house with no TV and no air conditioning. They don’t even have an electric can opener or a car, but they know all of their neighbors and either Raul or his wife Rumwalda are home every day when their two daughters walk home from school. Raul fishes three or four days each week and what his family does not eat, they trade or sell. While his house is quite small, it is ocean-front and they have little stress, no air pollution and almost no noise pollution, except for the lazy dog that starts barking at 6:00 AM. Most economists that measure by the dollar yardstick would definitely say Raul is poor, but I never thought of him that way because he seems to have so much. A healthy family, fresh food, low stress, beautiful oceanfront view, nice kids who have school and a nearby clinic. It’s a different lifestyle.
Could poverty ever be measured by what percent of your society can wear normal-sized clothes? One might argue that the 47 percent of our poor population are for the most part, not fat. How does that compare to a first-world country where 65 percent of the citizens are overweight? Most medical professionals agree that it is unhealthy and it is usually considered poor health to be overweight, especially when you factor in the collateral damage of diabetes and heart disease. Could we say then, that 65 percent of that specific first-world country lives in poverty because they are overweight and in poor health? Could poverty be measured that way?
Are you poor if you only have one television in your house or do you measure wealth by the number of TVs and telephones? Our poor campesinos might measure wealth by the number of hours they get to spend interacting with their children or their parents instead of watching television or being interrupted by cell phones. Is wealth fuelled by a consumer driven society where you need to buy the latest fashion? Is the fact that children in more developed countries wear designer-clothes to school a good thing? Who is that good for? Are we poor because our Panama school children wear uniforms that do not include fashion statements?

Who is rich and who is poor? Sometimes I’m not sure, but perhaps we can agree that there are different measures regarding poverty that are best suited for different cultures and one assumes a host of unrelated complexities when one confuses different cultures and values.
Robert E. Baker is the president of the American Chamber of Commerce & Industry of Panama. This column is based on the AmCham’ President’s Letter for January 2007.

P.S. Bear in mind that each Panamanian has access to free education, as there is a school in even the most remote areas. College also is free & open to anyone who passes the entrance exam…compare this to the US, where many parents go broke paying for their children’s college education!