🎬 Opening Scene
On a mountain trail still covered in mist, a park ranger walks with weary steps. Every few meters he stops: to pick up a crushed plastic bottle, a shiny wrapper hidden under a rock, a cigarette butt extinguished beside wildflowers.
The air smells of damp earth and pine, but also of plastic newly exposed by the night’s rain. Before him, the landscape is majestic: a valley opening between mountains, with birds crossing the sky. Yet his gaze remains fixed on the ground, on the invisible scars of tourism, visitors who came to enjoy, but left behind small traces of neglect.
🏛️ Origin
From Hidden Trails to Global Trends
Have you ever wondered how travel shifted from being remote adventures to experiences accessible to everyone? In the beginning, visiting a natural sanctuary or a local festival was something exclusive, demanding time, effort, and careful planning.
With the rise of modern transport and the circulation of images in newspapers, film, and television, everything changed. A solitary beach became famous through a postcard, a sacred mountain appeared in an international magazine, and a local festival turned massive after a report in a foreign newspaper.
That global recognition opened the doors to a massive flow of visitors. Nature became a destination, and festivals turned into spectacles, transforming the experience of a few into a collective phenomenon.
But with mass tourism came something new: waste. Trails once nearly untouched filled with wrappers and bottles; festival fields woke up covered in food scraps, plastic cups, and papers carried away by the wind.
This is where the other side of modern tourism emerged: collective enjoyment that, almost without realizing it, leaves behind a material trace that is hard to erase. An inevitable yet fascinating paradox, don’t you think?
🔬The Phenomenon
Today, waste management in tourist destinations has become a central issue. Have you ever thought that a trip doesn’t really end when you return home, but in what gets left behind? At massive festivals like Glastonbury, thousands of abandoned tents and cups require weeks of cleanup. And imagine the amount of oxygen tanks, ropes, and other items expeditions leave on Everest. Even on popular beaches like Cancún, special crews wake up at dawn to clean everything before the tourists arrive.
But what has changed in the way the world tackles this problem? It is no longer ignored measures are being put in place to counter it. In Iceland, for instance, trails have been closed to protect ecosystems, and in Japan, festival and stadium attendees are encouraged to take their trash with them. Meanwhile, in places like Peru and Nepal, campaigns call on travelers to carry out everything they brought in.
This shows a fascinating shift: waste is now part of the conversation about how we travel. Exploring a destination also means reflecting on how what we leave behind is managed.
