Heading up the east coast of Tasmania.

There is no doubt that Tasmania is a gorgeous island. We have only dabbled in the south and east of Tasmania and are definitely considering coming back someday to explore the wild west.  Unfortunately, one of our first impressions of Tasmania included graffiti and roadside trash.  Although these first impression were gathered during our ride from the airport into Hobart, it was such a stark difference from South Island New Zealand where we can’t recall seeing any graffiti.

We have noted the issues with trash in Yamhill County where we live and do most of our riding in previous blog posts linked here.  We have also provided some suggestions for reducing roadside toilet paper that we often saw in South Island New Zealand – linked here.  Yesterday, while riding along the lush green hills and valleys of the Northeast Tasmania Scenic route it was hard not to notice all the road side trash.  Most of the items were drink containers, apparently just tossed out of passing vehicles.  Beer bottles/cans, soda bottles, milk containers and water bottles topped the trash types.

It makes me sad to think that Tasmanians are trashing their own beautiful island and even more pissed off to think that tourists are contributing to trash problems in countries they visit.  It is illegal to toss trash on the roadside in Tasmania – it is an ugly eyesore that is completely unnecessary.

Do the right thing – deposit your trash in a designated receptacle – we always try to leave the places we visit cleaner than when we arrived. If we all pitched in – we can reduce the amount of roadside trash around the world.