Sunday 21 February 2010

The waste piles up

Because of the heavy snows, it's been over two months since my last trip to the recycling point*.

And the waste has piled up. Segregated plastics, glass (clear and coloured) and paper/cardboard. Today was a lovely blue-sky day, entirely unpredicted by the weather forecasters, so a good opportunity to load up and head off to the tip (below).

And what a mess met our eyes. The recycling point, operated by Remondis, is in Nowy Podolszyn, at the bus loop. Snow and ice have been moved aside so that the buses could get round, but it was all piled up where the recycling containers sit. So they were just placed on top of heaps consisting of icy grit (or gritty ice). The locals who'd taken the trouble to bring their litter here rather than just dump it in the forest had a hard time to get to the containers. Result - vast amounts of rubbish just left willy-nilly on the ground.

* For the record: we disposed of 252 glass bottles and jars. Nine weeks' worth!

7 comments:

Unknown said...

See the same everywhere, but unfortunately not only now but always - I have my opinion about it. What is yours?

Bob

Michael Dembinski said...

The sorting of waste is a key priority for Warsaw, which currently sticks 94% of it into landfill. This must cease. It's no great imposition to clean and segregate one's own waste. There must be market incentives for people not to dump theirs in forests, but to help put it to good use.

Our fruit and veg waste goes to the composter in our garden, glass, plastic and paper/card to Remondis, what's left (not a whole lot) we pay to have removed (18zł for a 120 litre bin every other week).

People who dump their rubbish in forests should be placed in stocks and pelted with rotten eggs and tomatoes.

student SGH said...

a magnificent photo - a clear essence of Polish squalor.

"Everything except the kitchen sink" - the caption to it could go.

If I rightly recognised your daughter, she looks like a general on a battlefield.

And the Micra - a vehicle of the settlers who have come to clean up the newly conquered land.

I really don't know why I could help laughing when I saw it.

Besides, I didn't see any forecasts yesterday but parents told me in the morning day would be sunny. The long-term predictions imply winter might be over. And may it really be!

student SGH said...

It was about the second picture. Though what I wrote can apply to the first one as well.

The wellingtons in a focal point - good choice for such a composition...

student SGH said...

correction: "I couldn't help laughing" I meant to say...

Island1 said...

I'd use these recycling points more if I had any faith at all that the contents were going to be recycled. They just go straight to landfill surely.

Michael Dembinski said...

Jamie - corporations like Remondis do not leave out their containers so that people can bung their junk to landfill for free. They sell the sorted waste on for recycling because it makes commercial sense.