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I am not the most
environmentally aware person in the world. As a
matter of fact, I can say with confidence that I do
more to pollute it rather than to clean it.
Living in the United
States (US), you are forced to be more
environmentally friendly; in all the neighbourhoods
that I lived in during my short stay there, trash
and recyclables were collected separately. At least
there I was forced to separate my paper, plastics
and glass; even if I was doing nothing outside of
that, at least there was that very small
contribution.
But in the lifestyle of
Addis Abeba, the hassle of having to separate my
trash and being aware of the carbon emissions of the
particular brand of car that I was driving or other
such forced actions are a thing of the distant past.
Being that they were more of a hassle than a
convenience, I cannot say that I miss them in
particular, but these days I am beginning to realise
their importance.
Being that the capital
is perched on a hill, there are many driving routes
that give you spectacular views of parts of the
city. Granted, not all views may have an attractive
set up, but they do all have one thing in common. As
you are looking off into the horizon, you see a ring
of dark pollution all around. Now this may make for
a spectacular sunset when the sun's rays turn the
ring pinkish and all different shades of orange, but
that is the silver lining to that cloud, and the
only positive thing that it has.
Beginning with me,
Ethiopians as a whole are not a very environmentally
friendly nation. People drive cars that shoot out
such toxic emissions that they form a dark cloud
behind them as they are speeding down the street. As
far as I can tell when driving through our capital,
there are more than a few cars that do not need to
be anywhere but at the junkyard, because all they
are doing is making the air more dirty, the streets
more crowded and the gas consumption of the country
higher because you can be assured that if it has
been on the streets for more than 30 years, it was
never made to be fuel efficient.
This holds true for
some of the vehicles that are being imported into
the country by private car owners as well as
dealers. Many, in order to avoid paying the higher
prices of benzene, import diesel cars. Granted that
is more cost effective, many of these very same
vehicles are spewing out lethal toxins as they are
cruising down Africa Avenue on Sunday afternoon
trying to get the attention of scantily clad females
or guys dressed like something out of a very cheap
music video. Just wipe your finger over your face
after having spent a day walking the streets of
Addis and you will see the physical evidence for the
junk that is floating around all through the air.
As though this in
itself were not bad enough, trash, whether
recyclable or not, is thrown any and everywhere. I
have witnessed, on more than one occasion, people
taking a bag of trash filled with plastic bags and
glass and all other horrible non-biodegradable items
and simply toss it in the water or sewerage line
that happens to be conveniently located just outside
their house. Forget having to walk a few hundred
yards to use the already overflowing city dumpsters
because they too have already begun spilling onto
the streets and any other space that they can reach.
But the sad thing about
the issue is there are no significant efforts being
made by the responsible authorities to decrease the
amount of garbage that goes into our water and
sewage lines. There are hundreds of millions of Birr
being spent on the Millennium celebrations but I
have yet to hear of an effort to purchase a fleet of
garbage trucks to decrease the amount of dry trash.
There has never reached my ears a single whisper of
efforts to begin a recycling centre or even to
attempt to begin the recycling process.
Maybe that may not be
something that is worrying all; then take for
instance the amount of pollution that is dispersed
into the water and air by the meagre manufacturing
sector and industries in the country. In the efforts
to catch-up with the rest of the world, there was a
significant factor that was thrown completely out of
the window and that was the simple thing called an
environmental impact assessment.
There is legislation
that requires such an assessment, but there are more
than a few factories that have been built near water
sources and are conveniently using them as waste
dumpsters, without taking into consideration the
fact that they may be polluting drinking water. The
Akaki-Kaliti Industrial Village is a prime example
of this.
Granted these may be
far-fetched dreams for a country that is strapped in
more ways than one and needs to get out of bigger
holes than this one. But one also has to think about
what is going to happen later on down the line.
What about in a decade
or two; will the country be able to afford the very
expensive costs that it is going to have to endure
if it is going to clean up its land, water and air?
Think of the hell that Los Angeles had to go
through, and even that city has a bigger budget than
the entire Horn of Africa so that should be cause
for caution.
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