Fig. 1: Trash Truck at Yachen Gar, June 2010I have recently moved to Spartanburg, South Carolina, where my wife Eliza has started at job teaching at Wofford College. One of the remarkable things about my new town is the trash collection: everyone uses the same trash can, and then a truck with a robotic arm comes by, picks up the can, and dumps the contents into the truck. No trash collectors involved, other than the person driving the truck.
Fig. 2: Houses at Yachen GarOther people may be more familiar with this type of trash collection, but I have only seen it in one other place: the late Khenpo A-khyuk‘s encampment at Yachen Gar, in remote Kham (see fig. 1). As those who have been to Tibet recently can attest, trash is a major issue. When Eliza and I visited Dzogchen Monastery in 2007, trash cans were overflowing, the hillsides were covered with refuse, and there was a huge pile of assorted garbage just outside the town. I get the impression that Tibetan culture simply has not yet figured out how to deal with all of the potato chip wrappers, beer bottles and cheap clothes that have accompanied it’s rapid introduction to modernity over the last few decades.
I was in Kolkata this summer, where the trash collection process amounts to running around with a wheelbarrow and a shovel. Still, the place is cleaner than it was ten years ago. Here’s to material progress!
Nice post, Geoff, thanks! Here is another really interesting blog for anyone interested in trash collection and waste management in Asia. It is the blog of a former Fulbright researcher who was studying Indian waste management: http://wastelines.com/
I was in Kolkata this summer, where the trash collection process amounts to running around with a wheelbarrow and a shovel. Still, the place is cleaner than it was ten years ago. Here’s to material progress!
Nice post, Geoff, thanks! Here is another really interesting blog for anyone interested in trash collection and waste management in Asia. It is the blog of a former Fulbright researcher who was studying Indian waste management: http://wastelines.com/