"If a littered camino bothers you, this is your opportunity to join with others and do something besides complain and shoot photos of the awfulness."
Yes it does bother me, as it does many - probably most people. This fouling implies much - which troubles me. I can't understand it actually - the crappy littering. It's vile and disrespectful to the human spirit and our planet. Perhaps the litter is because this wonderful camino has become humdrum for some, a mere 'cool' thing to do.
Yet cleaning up after polluting pilgrims may not be the answer and may be a false and illusory solution. Wonderful short term yes! of course...feels good... Long term, you volunteer yourself for the eternal job, achieving little, and certainly not a change in awareness. But if you want to do it, do it without resentment?
When I was young, my poor old mother cleaned up after me. She was wrong - she should have made me clean up. Today, we can't be responsible for the mess that others make, and nothing we do can make it better in the long term. Or we'll be cleaning up forever, eternal martyrs. So unless you want to be cleaning up forever, don't do it. Or do it quietly and suffer the 'awfulness', which I also find awful. Some good and well meaning people may clean up a section of the camino (till tomorrow) - the rest of this precious Way remains foul. I'm sure there is a metaphor here for modern living, polluted by commercialism and its fallout.
What's needed is a change in 'litter consciousness' and neither you nor I are likely to change that, unfortunately. It's a huge task. Gigantic.
We may clean up this month in this place; are we there to clean up every month after that? The problem is thus masked., if a section looks clean - for today.
A Hindu friend long ago spoke of 'precipitating a crisis' - let it go.....
On a practical note , if at each pilgrim stopping point the bin was a wire structure whose contents could easily be burned , then this might make the job easier. But still no change in awareness....that's a biggy....