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Sun, 08 Oct 2006
A'La Cypriot Recycling -- Or Lack of it.
This one does not require any further comments either. Pathetic?
Cyprus Mail, Web-site, October 08, 2006, Front Page
Recycling going to the landfill By Constantine Markides THE CONTENTS of the three-colour coded recycling bins that the Nicosia Municipality installed throughout the city in June are currently being dumped with other rubbish at the Kotsiatis landfill site in the Nicosia District.
Representatives from two Nicosia recycling companies told the Sunday Mail yesterday that the 30-litre capacity bins – the blue bin for metal, glass and plastic, the yellow bin for paper, and the green bin for general waste – were far too small, making it economically unviable for them to recycle the contents.
Aside from the disincentive of the bins’ slenderness, any recycler would also have to waste time sifting through and separating the contents of the blue mixed-materials bin since metal, glass and plastic cannot be recycled together.
Nicosia Mayor Michalakis Zampelas confirmed that at present the contents of the bins are being transported to the Kotsiatis landfill due to the lack of a contracted recycler. But he told the Sunday Mail that the plastic bags were colour-coded so that it would be possible to retrieve the bags and recycle them at a future date.
But the public – already suspicious that the appearance of the sleek colourful recycling units is no more than a Municipal publicity stunt to appear ecologically progressive – is not likely to be consoled by the possibility of a future recovery of the colour-coded bags.
Even the Mayor could not guarantee that the bags were not being discarded, but said that the “the most important thing is that the people know about the environment and recycling and develop an environmental sense”.
Zampelas hoped that the recycling of the bins’ contents would be in place “in a year or two years at the latest”.
British American Tobacco donated the first 100 bins, while the distributor Loizos Afxentiou provided another ten. A total of 1,200 bins are expected to be in place within the year, with the expenses covered by the sponsors.
Greens Municipal Councillor Stelios Kolokasides, who has issued a statement
criticising the Municipality on the issue, questioned how the mayor could possible expect the public to develop an environmental sense when the Municipality was discarding the recyclables as if they were rubbish.
“This particular initiative by the Mayor does not help either in recycling or in cultivating an environmental conscience when the public sees that the various items that they conscientiously place in the appropriate bins are taken to the Kotsiatis landfill as before,” Kolokasides said.
The Mayor has defended the introduction of the bins, claiming that the European Union approved them. “The bins are manufactured in Germany under European standards, and therefore we are repeating in Nicosia what is happening in Europe.”
But Kolokasides said that Cyprus is going to get in trouble with the EU if they discover that the government is treating the contents of its recycling like mere rubbish.
A supervisor of a major Nicosia recycling company told the Sunday Mail yesterday that there is an EU Waste Directive in place that requires member states to recycle “packaged materials” (including bottles, plastic, cans, etc) and that Cyprus could face stiff fines if the EU finds that the packaged materials are being tossed into a landfill.
He also noted that it was not economically feasible “to send a car to get and pick up four kilos from each recycling station. If they were bigger then it would be more viable.”
The supervisor blamed the authorities for not consulting those who have knowledge of the work and process.
“Unfortunately, we have this problem in Cyprus, where our officials think they know everything. So they go and do things like this.”
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