Garbage in Buenos Aires is an ongoing problem that you eventually kind of get used to. It gets piled up on the streets in anticipation of the garbage trucks, and it usually gets scattered all to hell between the pile-up and the truck's arrival during the night. BA streets are pretty dirty.
Recently, the garbage workers went on strike. (Argentines love a good strike.) I didn't pay much attention to this, other than to notice the garbage piles were higher, smellier, and more scattered than usual, so I didn't know why they were striking.
However, as I was walking home last night, I first noticed that the biggest of the piles were gone. Oh, good, I thought, they must be back to work. Then I came across something that made me double-take: a dumpster.
I have never seen a dumpster in Buenos Aires. We have marveled at this before, at how simple it would be to curb the garbage problem simply by providing a place to put the garbage! But there it was, shiny and new. And a few blocks later, I saw another one.
I don't know if they were brought about by the strike, but it´s possible. If so, I'm impressed to see that this national passtime made a change.
The next milestone will be if people actually use them. Brent and I once saw a man step out of his store and toss a handful of torn up paper onto the sidewalk. So we'll see.
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