Garbage - specifically, the stuff dumped in public spaces - has been Mayor Gustavo Petro's nemesis.
Petro's plan for transforming the city's collection system from private to public resulted in mounds of trash on sidewalks all over the city and eventually got Petro temporarily ousted from office. That was followed by the city's Basuro Cero (Zero Garbage) campaign, which only involved ever-increasing production of garbage - and recycling campaigns, which have produced no noticeable changes in trash disposal habits.
A pedestrian passes a trash-strewn sidewalk in La Candelaria. |
Of course, in a city of millions of people accustomed since forever to tossing their trash willy-nilly onto the sidewalks, where dogs and homeless people tear open the bags and paw thru it for anything they can consume or sell, an unenforceable law changed nothing. If Petro had bothered to ask the opinions of any Bogotanos, they could have saved him the trouble of creating a doomed law.
City 'Zero Garbage' workers sweep up a bit of the city's tons of garbage. |
But Petro, despite being an ex-guerrilla, chose conservative policies obviously doomed to failure. That's nobody's fault but his own.
By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours
No comments:
Post a Comment