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Friday, January 16, 2009

Greece is catching up on recycling – but we need to do more and faster

When it comes to recycling, I can be proud that I do it more than the native Greeks. I have two 40-50 cm diameter pots (γλάστρες) and other smaller ones in the balcony plus the soil downstairs from the building’s shared garden in which I bury all my vegetable wastes.

The idea of burying vegetable wastes initially came at a time when the garbage workers went on strikes a few years back, and I didn’t want to take the garbage out to make the streets stink. Now, I have been burying vegetable wastes for years, and God has actually rewarded me with cherry-size tomatoes, green peppers, tiny potatoes from the seeds that were buried accidentally and grew up to give little but worth mentioning joyful harvest.

A while ago, I remember reading news report of EU commission’s warning on Athens about its garbage disposal / land-fill program because our people are not doing enough on recycling wastes. I think the supermarket should start charging plastic bags, this is something that other western European countries have been doing for years.

Once I paid a short visit to Edinburgh, Scotland and I chose to buy a re-useable bag for my quick shopping for fruits instead of a plastic bag, I still carry it to the supermarkets here. As a matter of fact I have many different ones of various sizes (Praktiker very large, Carrefour and AB Vasilopoulos, medium, and Marks & Spencer of Edinburgh smaller, the store has many different sizes to buy from but I was a visitor so I chose a small sized one), and I put meat in one, veggies in another, cold cuts and cheese in the small bag, and chemicals and detergents in another, etc.

Some websites that help us learn to recycle are http://www.herrco.gr/ (choose UK flag for English) and http://www.recyclenow.com/ , I am sure there must be some other sites about recycling, I will update them when I find, or you can update me before I have time to search.

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