It started little by little. I picked up a plastic wrap from the beach and tossed it into the bin near by. When swimming past some floating trash I brought it to the shore and to the trash bin. Then came the morning when on my dog walk on the beach I noticed an empty plastic bag and ended up filling it with other trash before throwing it into a large waste bin. I started wondering how trashy the seemingly clean beaches are. A small stone gravel hides quite well the bottle caps, plastic coffee spoons and all that little rubbish. Not to mention the cigarette butts. I started to take fruit bags or other bags with me every morning and pick up the trash as I walked along. My walks slowed down considerably due to this new squat exercise of mine, but I ended up happier. The best moments are when some passing joggers or other people enjoying the morning by the beach give positive comments and sometimes even pick up a thing or two into my bag. I've been spotted by the guys who are taking care of the trash bins of the beach and they are greeting me happily when we meet. Sure, these guys also pick up the biggest stuff along their route, but they do not have time to squat because of every little piece of plastic while other jobs are waiting. But I have that time.
Quite soon I started to run out of the plastic bags at home due to this new hobby of mine. It seemed a little insane to buy plastic bags separately so that I could collect plastic rubbish into them. Fortunately, our latest visit to Finland hit the spot and I came back with a couple of rolls of biodegradable 20-liter bags. I haven´t spotted these here, not sure if there are any available. Now at least my trash collecting bags are disappearing without any traces. For same reason the dog poop bags we use are also still imported, so I can use rapidly biodegradable versions for that use also. Big thanks for my cousin who got me 10 rolls of them from Finland while on holiday here since I forgot those myself.
While the tourist season starting to end little by little, the beaches will hopefully be cleaner. So far I have filled one bag easily every morning and the length of the beach I walk by is not even that long. But there is still work to do elsewhere. The more closely I look, the more trashy the rest of my morning walk route appears to be. So I'm going to continue this one-woman's Bag at a Time -project and expand it from the beach to the upper slopes of Podstrana. The Bioska's bags will be on my standard list of things to bring from Finland, at least until I find the same kind of product from here. (Note, I have not received any compensation or reward from Bioska / Plasti Roll company for this product visibility and I have paid for all the bags myself. For more info on the products, check out the web page in english)
There are some things even I can do nothing about. What do you think of the final disposal place of this mattress or toilet seat? Unfortunately here too, some people think the waste can be thrown almost anywhere. Along the same road there is a tractor tire, a lot of some kind of cable, mixed construction waste and of course a lot of that small litter suited to my capacity. And the road doesn´t seem to be passing through any landfill, it goes by olive trees and next to the pine forest. I like the route because it gives you the feeling of being on the countryside. Only when one goes by daily and starts to really look around, the trashy truth is revealed.
Recycling here in Croatia only takes little baby steps. In Finland I had already become accustomed to such an amazing system that the shock when coming here was quite strong. I still feel bad putting bio waste into mixed waste. Fortunately here at our neighborhood there are separate collecting bins for plastic, paper and glass in addition to mixed waste. At least I can recycle something here. The bottle recycling system is so confusing that I do not even start to go through that now. That is why especially glass bottles still often end up on the roadsides or other wrong places. But things are going ahead here, slowly but still. I remember from my early childhood more than 30 years ago how the garbage bags were taken to a pit dug into the woods. Then at some point that pit was covered and new one was dug. That small village in the middle of the forest was not on the route of the garbage truck at that time. However I could swear that there was quite a small amount of waste produced by our family at that time compared to the present day. Long way have we come from that time. Nowadays even the traditional dumps are beginning to be history due to the fine energy-producing waste incineration plants and other waste management. It would definitely be a time in Finland to work more globally with this matter, to bring that knowledge and enviromental thinking forward. There really is a need for it.
However, everything is not ideal in Finland either, although in many areas environmental issues are in a very good shape. In the spring with my mother, we cleaned her normal morning walking route from litter before the hays grew to cover them. Several bags were collected from a few kilometers length of roadside. It felt so bad to pick up the take-away coffee cups with a plastic covers from the ditch, next to the cigarette packs and candy bags. For me it feels totally irrational to just throw litter out of the car window or toss it into the roadside while walking. But clearly for some it´s not an issue. People's attitudes surely are the biggest obstacle to promoting environmental issues.
But I do what I can do here. One bag at a time. And sometimes when I happen to find an empty plastic bag, then two bags at a time. Perhaps after seeing me doing this people will think at least a little next time they hold that empty pack in their hands. And if one of them ends up putting it to the nearest bin, I am very happy.
