It was only a few months ago that I joined an Organization called Clean up Greece (www.cleanupgreece.org.gr), a branch of clean up the world, which has been working for years to educate individuals, schools, businesses, municipalities and governments how to better respect and protect our environment.
Growing up in a country with a "green" movement, I developed an awareness for using and promoting environmental friendly practices. From cosmetics to cleaning materials I buy "green". Now the time had come that I felt the urge to do something on a bigger scale, to work together with others for sharing information and finding solutions.
I started talking to people on the island where I live and found that everyone I spoke to was interested in exploring the possibilities of better rubbish management, re-cycling and a cleaner island. So we had some meetings, put a loose plan together and made some proposals. We spoke to the Municipality, head of Schools, parent associations and individuals. Some schools promised to contact Clean up Greece and organize educational workshops for the students. Some of the grown ups were game to participate in a clean up day.
So we decided to have a go and last Sunday a few of us went off and started to collect rubbish from the roadside. I have to say that I was blown away. We had planned to walk and cover a large area, but the amount of plastic bottles, tins, paper and cigarette butts we collected on a strip that was only a 100 m long and 3 meters wide on each side of the street was overwhelming. We filled 16 large bags and it seemed like we had done almost nothing at all. I was amazed.
Plastic bottles and hundreds of cigarette butts each taking between to 1 - 5 years to disintegrate while poisoning the ground and water in the process along with all the rest of the stuff and this was not even the tip of the iceberg.
I know that experts have been warning us for years to treat our environment with more care and collecting all that rubbish really brought it home to me. I ask myself "what is it that keeps us from taking the warnings seriously? What compels people to throw rubbish into the road, the sea, the forest and the beach like it doesn't matter? What keeps the rest of us from standing up and speaking out and doing all we can every day for the protection of the environment we live in?
Do we feel so disconnected from our surroundings that we fail to realize that it is our very source of live which we are damaging? What are we waiting for? Lets face it - together we can make a difference!
For more information on ways to act more environmental friendly consult http://www.cleanupgreece.org.gr
http://www.cleanuptheworld.org
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