Rangoon rolls into plastic age

It was part of tradition, meritorious acts in Buddhist culture.

Neighborhood water pots re-filled by retirees, housewives or anyone looking for karmic credit for a good deed.

Many terracotta pots are gone, replaced in some places by plastic bottles and chained tin cups.

"Diminishing clay water pots could mean diminishing trust and caring, in communities," says U Sue Hnget, a famous Burmese writer.

Village Twante is littered with abandoned kilns.
Potter U Kyaw Soe  has begun to focus on flower pots and decorative planters.  He offers customers refrigerated water, in plastic bottles. His children are majoring in Japanese and geography.

Plastic is now a growing scourge.
Crunch of plastics startle oxen that draw carts.
Structural glazing startle crumbling colonial architecture.
Shorts and soccer jerseys diminish sarongs and bamboo pith helmets.
Disposable plastic bottles float, in Airawathi and Rangoon rivers.

Hannah Beech  - Clay pots that quenched Myanmar's thirst ,  
Times of India    Saturday    October 12, 2019.