Where is the dang trash to clean up?

I haven't done the career yet, but I've been spending a lot of time on Mua Pel'am. First time I got there, I was expecting a lot of trash and stuff to clean up. Didn't even see wrong-doers every day. It took a full sim-year to finish cleaning up the place, because there were so little to actually do for the island environment.

I usually found 1-3 piles of trash on the beaches, and maybe 2 in the water. Might be more that I missed. There should be stuff to clean up by the pool of sulphur (?) too, you have to click them several times. Also piles of ashes (at least I think its ashes) near the top of the vulcano, there's a path behind Calder Camp. If there are Litterbugs (at least I saw those on stage 2) they drop trash as well.

I'm lucky if I find a single pile of trash every 3 or 4 days. Never saw any ash piles. No sulfur piles. Nothing in the water. No one littering. This is maddening. I'm repairing my game right now to see if it improves. My island is still at the beginning stage, so it's definitely not too clean or pristine or anything right now.

It took about 2 weeks in Sim time before my Sim (mermaid, child of the ocean, child of the island, Conservationist career) had cleaned the several trash piles on the beach, plus combed the beach, etc, before I got a notice that the work my Sim was doing was making a difference on the island.

Most of the trash I've found have been in the neighborhood with the volcano.

You have to be in Mua pelam for trash to appear and sometimes you have to beachcomb for trash for it to show up. Just click on any sand on the beach and then the beachcomb for trash option should show up. Trash shows up for me quite often, but my sim is a mermaid and a conservationist. It didn't in the early stages of the career and now it shows up frequently. I did reach the second stage of the conservation part though so I guess I'm doing well. It just takes time. I'd say it was about two weeks of conservation job tasks before it improved to level 2.

It takes a while to show up. I’ve only seen it in Mua Pelam though.

It absolutely takes time. I had my sim camping out there several days in a row. He's spent more time on that island than at his actual home :D I made Caldera camp a generic lot, so he could stay as long as he wanted. I scoured the island every day for things to turn up. Beachcombing is a good alternative, I think. At least you should always find trash, then

"kalaksed;c-17128889" wrote:
i just had the next step pop up without even actually trying to do anything, since i'm currently not playing a conservationist sort

i did have my mermaid clean up one of each type of thing i saw, just to see how they worked, so one ash pile, one...whatever it is by the sulfur pool, one pile of trash on the ground, one pile of trash in the water. and they did dig up some trash while beachcombing, since sims seem to swap between hunting for shells and garbage on their own there

but the most surprising part was when the pop-up about reaching the next conservation stage popped up. my sim was busy fishing and had just caught a pile of seaweed (the stuff they throw back) when it happened. and considering it was just my sim and another mermaid on the whole island at the time, it had to be the seaweed that triggered it, since the other mermaid was doing the typical frolick up near the 'hidden' passage behind the volcano

That bolded part is what have always confused me. Why throw it back in? Its really not helping the environment on the island, and nobody I know who does any fishing at all would do it. Also, I haven't noticed that fishing up the wooden trunk gives that effect. It would make sense if that also contributed to the island clean-up.

So I’ve discovered that if you want to actually enjoy cleaning up Sulani, you have to have your sims live on Mua Pel’am.

I’ve played several weeks with my conservationist sim who lives in Ohan’ali Town and was very frustrated that I could never find anything to clean up when visiting Mua Pel’am. I’d get the work task to clean up 3 things on Mua and I’d never find anything. I’d have to actually have my sim comb the beach for trash. That’s no fun. I want the trash piles sitting on the beach, floating in the ocean. I wanted the sulfur piles. The ash mounds by the volcano. Several weeks and nothing. I’d be lucky if I found one piece of trash without combing for it myself.

I moved my sim to Mua to see how that would work. Instantly every day there’s at least 3 piles of trash on the beach, 2 in the water, 2 sulfur piles, 3 ash mounds.

I’m so annoyed. Why doesn’t this stuff show up if you don’t live there? I don’t want to have to live on that specific island just to enjoy the career and cleaning up the island.

Okay, so my conservationist does not live on Mua Pel'am, but the main village. And at first I had the same problem. BUT, I've played with other families on Mua Pel'am for quite a while, and suddenly the trash is there. Also when my conversationist travels there. So that might be an option for you.

I'm doing the conservationist career. I found it easy to clean up the trash. You just keep beachcombing for trash until you find a piece. Also I didn't see any wrongdoers at first, but then I've seen a couple of fish poachers now. They have a red exclamation mark over their head. My Sim has been doing the career less than one Sim month and has already advanced about halfway through the career. I also get his wife who is a diver to dive for treasure and trash and they've already had a notice to say the island has improved.