1.
Vietnam
Garbage in Vietnam seems to be as much a part of
daily life as driving a moped, which is why it tops the list of the dirtiest
countries in the world. Trash is ubiquitous, wherever you go. It can be piled
up in the middle of the street to the point where you’d have to drive around
it, or it simply lies scattered around by wind. The Mekong Delta rivers are
like sewage canals – full of waste from factories, as well as individuals. I
personally observed people throwing bags of trash in the river, and you could see
all kinds of waste floating in the water. Perhaps the most shocking thing in
Vietnam was that in a restaurant all the refuse gets thrown on the floor,
whether it is a discarded napkin, a cigarette butt, or a chicken bone. The
prevailing mentality in this country seems to be: someone else will clean it
up.
2. Cambodia
It’s proximity to Vietnam is only one of the
factors to make Cambodia one of the dirtiest countries in the world. Garbage
here also seems to be an ever-present element of the surroundings. It is common
to see houses surrounded by scattered garbage (usually plastic), and just
driving down one of the main “highways” going through the country is enough to
understand why Cambodia would be on this list. Piles of garbage on the sides of
the road (with villages right next to them) stretch for hundreds of miles
throughout the country. Truly a sad sight.
3. China
This country has been named the dirtiest country
in the world due to a number of factors, and the biggest ones are its water and
air pollution. Contaminated water is a huge problem in China, with some 300
million people drinking it on a regular basis. Almost 200 million suffer from
various diseases because of this. China’s air pollution as a result of its
breakneck economic growth has also caused millions of illnesses and premature
deaths of its population. China probably has the worst air pollution in the
entire world.
4. India
India is a worthy competitor to China for the
dirtiest country in the world, because not only is the air and water pollution
a major issue in this country, but the garbage problem may even be worse than
Vietnam. The concept of bins seems foreign to most of the population, and the
overfilled commuter trains don’t have them at all. This only results in
everyone throwing their trash… that’s right – out the windows! Another
notorious dirty fact about India is the ‘communal poos’ – it is not uncommon to
find a group of people sitting around in a circle or a line and… well, yes,
defecating together wherever they like.
5. Mexico
Mexico City, the capital of Mexico, and the
capital of North American air pollution, estimates unhealthy ozone emissions
nearly 85% of the year. Mexico's geographical location--in the center of a
volcanic crater and surrounded by mountains--only serves to lock in the air
pollution, causing smog to sit above the city.
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