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Polish citizens have no Respect for the Land they live on


nauczyciel  
1 Sep 2007 /  #1
It seems that just about everyday, i see people come to the place outside my flat that has a view of the city. They come to look at the city and decide to clean out their car. Taxi drivers are the worst offenders. Throwing bags of garbage, beer bottles, cans, out into the bushes just 1.5 meters from their car.

I wish I could speak good enough Polish to yell at them to go pick it up. But I guess the Neste and Tesco only 100 meters away is too far to drive to put in the garbage cans there.

At this moment I'm watching 1 guy and 2 girls at their car, and seen them toss 2 bags onto the bushes, with 1 Heineken & 1 RedBull can.

And as I take weekly bike rides through the forests around my city, I am seeing more and more piles of garbage being dropped off in it.

As I take my garbage and recycling out over the past few months, I notice that no one cares to recycle. I opened up the garbage bin to find loads of plastic water bottles, beer bottles and cans, and cardboard boxes & paper stuffed into it. But only 1-2 meters away there are GLASS, METAL, PLASTIC and PAPER bins for recycling. Sheer laziness.

Back home in Canada, we have to pay a deposit on all glass, plastic, tetrapak containers, and we get that money back when we, or someone else, returns them. So maybe if something like this would be instituted in PL, then it would be an incentive for ppl to return them, and keep loads of items out of the landfills. Binners here would be making a fortune!!

I am not saying that this behaviour is limited to Poland. It's just when you start to look for something, you see it more and more.

To do my part at work, I started a recycling program in my school. We have separate baskets for plastic cups and waste paper/paper cups in each classroom and only 1 main bin for all other items in the office.

So far it seems to be working well.

I take the items to the recycle bins a few blocks away.
sapphire  22 | 1241  
1 Sep 2007 /  #2
good on ya. I think there is no excuse for not recycling. I get bins from the council that are collected weekly.. at my work we recycle everything and anything. I did used to live in one London borough that was caught emptying the recycling bins into a landfill site..somehow that disheartens those who have made the effort to trek to the bin with all their empties.. My partner is Polish and he is fanatic about recycling so I guess its not all Poles. Maybe the Polish goverment needs to promote it more?? I like the idea of paying extra money on packaging.. I have recently been working at a music festival behind the bar.. we charged an extra 10p on every pint cup which was refundable. At the end of the festival there was barely a pint cup to be seen anywhere and lots of people took the initiative to collect loads of them and make money. One guy came to the bar with 168 cups.. thats £16.80! if they could have done the same for all the paper plates and other food packaging would have been a hell of a lot less of a clean up.
BubbaWoo  33 | 3502  
1 Sep 2007 /  #3
doesnt poland have a refund policy if you return your used beer bottle to the shop?
OP nauczyciel  
1 Sep 2007 /  #4
i think they do... i've seen some guys returning them. small step in the right direction

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