Is the third world polluting the earth?

I can't say I have traveled the whole world just yet, I haven't even seen all of Australia although I have seen plenty of the West coast and central inland centres through my employment. I have been lucky enough to explore most but not all of Western Europe and some of Eastern Europe. Likewise, I have spent some time in some Middle Eastern countries with so much more to explore.

Although I have made many trips to South East Asia, I still haven't explored all of the countries in this diverse region. I have seen some of North East Asia but I know there is so much more to explore, these are future trips I am looking forward to undertaking.

I have still to venture to the Central Asian sub-continent countries of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. Africa is large continent with so many countries to visit, yet I have only seen a couple and I have never even set foot in Central and South America but I have seen parts of the North American countries of the United States and Canada.

What I have noticed traveling through developed and developing nations is the attitude to waste management, recycling and the care for the environment. There is a distinct trend where developed nations adapt excellent waste management programs to efficiently dispose of consumer and business waste.

Developing nations, aka the third world choose to not collect rubbish and residents just throw their rubbish on the ground or into rivers where it is swept away and is no longer their problem. The prevalence of developing nations to rely on plastic plastic packaging is immense coupled with poor waste disposal practices of developing nations means this becomes all of our problem.

Unfortunately, nations and individuals solely focusing on their own actions won't solve the plastic entering the ocean issue and decisive world leadership is required. This is really the domain of the United Nations with more funding, research and education required to address this worldwide issue that now affects all of us.

It is easy to cast blame on the developing world; the degree of pollution I have personally witnessed in developing nations is unbelievable with the residents not only passively accepting their fate, they actively participate in the destruction of the natural environment.

This is the world that we all live in, we are all consumers to a degree and the burden of cleaning up the environmental destruction of the earth by the third world now rests on the leadership of the developed world.