“Mom said it was one of the dirtiest countries she’d visited. (Mid 90’s, I think.)”
I used to call Athens “Mexico City East”, but trust me, no more. Nowadays, likely because of the 2004 Olympics, Athens is so clean it would compare favorably to say, Copenhagen. People are very proud of the way the city looks and seem to want to keep it that way. The real problem there is air pollution. They have made some progress against it but the physical situation of Athens together with the number of cars there makes it difficult. The countryside now, however, is almost spotless.
That's wonderful. If people are proud of their country, and proud of themselves for the way they're fixing up their country, then one can hope that eventually they'll decide the country should continue to be populated by Greeks, so they'll have some babies :-).