Pollution in Mexico

I would not be surprised if you told me people in Cancun don’t understand the meaning of pollution. If they do they certainly do not think anything of it.

The first thing I noticed was the land pollution; everyone here litters! We live right on a park and regardless of how often I clean up the area in front of our house, within hours it’s covered in garbage again. Is it really SO hard to use a garbage can?

Then there is the air pollution. What a treat for an asthmatic. There seem to be NO standards here. Cars spew black smoke and smokers light up wherever they please (which is a whole other post). Not to mention all the gas run appliances and tools here (which are clearly about 100 years old and poorly maintained). Oh, and who can forget that our local Walmart smells like a toxic chemical lab exploded. Do they really need to use the paint or varnish or cleaning products with the highest concentration of chemicals? The smell was so strong yesterday that if it was in Canada the store would have had to be closed due to health standards.

Lastly, and often equally as annoying, is the excessive noise pollution. Dogs are barking ALL the time and the attitude seems to be: “Oh, my dog is barking loudly at 3 am. Is that a problem?” People seem to party loudly until all hours of the morning  regardless of the day of the week. Mexicans roam the neighborhoods daily selling their goods, which means loud yelling and banging on gates. City workers start “working” at ridiculous hours. Revving your motorcycle engine repeatedly seems to be a favourite pastime.


Last night Jay and I went to bed around 11:30, already quite tired. Unfortuneatly I was still up at 2:30 am because smoke kept drifting into our (unseal-able) window, giving me an asthma attack. Tired of not being able to sleep and having trouble breathing I went to investigate. Eventually I found the problem and Jay went over to speak with the offenders. It was a group of 6 guys, all at least in their 40’s, drinking and smoking in the alley-way near our house. After attempting to communicate the problem we left, although we weren’t sure they understood since we are not fluent in Spanish and the guys were totally wasted. Amazingly the smoking seemed to stop! I started feeling better and was almost asleep when all of a sudden loud party-like noises erupted.  The 6 guys had moved to the park in front of our house. At this point it’s 3:30 am and these guys are so drunk they’re slurring their speech. Thankfully by 4 am they had moved on and I was finally able to get some rest. Until of course city workers showed up at 6:30 am. There is clearly no better place to eat your breakfast and gossip loudly than 3 metres from our bedroom window. They didn’t even start working until 7:30 am!

I find this aspect of Mexican culture very difficult to deal with. I love the care-free attitude, but I miss the pollution laws and standards we have in Canada.

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