One of the things that the article does not mention is how extremely dirty Tunisia is. I've been there two or three weeks not long ago.
It was really sad to see how trash is all over the country no matter where you go. Dumpsters are extremely disgusting, full of trash left rotting for days in main streets. People throw away anything anywhere.
I've been to Djerba island and litter is even on beaches. I've seen litter floating in the water which deterred me from taking a swim. On one occasion I even spotted a half broken umbrella pole rusted and buried in the sand, just waiting for someone to be seriously injured which I obviously removed. Broken glass in beaches is also common, so be careful and always wear flip-flops.
This is a huge cultural and not so easy to solve problem as I've seen people dumping trash in front of me as if something completely natural. It is sad because if that problem is solved, it is actually a beautiful country.
Other countries suffering exactly the same problem that I've visited are Vietnam and Maldives.
These generalized statements make my blood boil. Djerba in particular has had issues with garbage [0]. This is akin to me saying the US is an extremely needle ridden country based on a long trip to San Francisco.
That said, a lot of Tunisian cities do have issues with garbage management and littering but calling the country "extremely dirty" makes it seem like people are taking dumps in the streets which is not the case.
Generalized statements? I've been walking an average of 8Km a day while on holidays in Tunisia, so I've been to plenty of places and cities and the pattern repeated over and over again. I'm not the typical tourist that is moved from place to place like a puppet through tours. What do you expect from me? To walk all over the country to prove my point? Djerba was just an example. Give me break.
I visited Paris a couple times and travaled across Tunisia and it is not even close. All three north African countries I've visited (Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt) are littered (mostly plastic) but Tunisia shocked me the most: plastic garbage is everywhere from tourist attactions (e. g. Roman runis) and beaches to the remote desert. One of sceens which shocked me the most is when a young man drove a wheelbarow full of grabage just outside a village and dumped content to be spread by wind across the desert.
It was really sad to see how trash is all over the country no matter where you go. Dumpsters are extremely disgusting, full of trash left rotting for days in main streets. People throw away anything anywhere.
I've been to Djerba island and litter is even on beaches. I've seen litter floating in the water which deterred me from taking a swim. On one occasion I even spotted a half broken umbrella pole rusted and buried in the sand, just waiting for someone to be seriously injured which I obviously removed. Broken glass in beaches is also common, so be careful and always wear flip-flops.
This is a huge cultural and not so easy to solve problem as I've seen people dumping trash in front of me as if something completely natural. It is sad because if that problem is solved, it is actually a beautiful country.
Other countries suffering exactly the same problem that I've visited are Vietnam and Maldives.