THE GOVERNMENT yesterday took a first step towards solving the island’s massive rubbish problem, by officially launching a pilot recycling scheme in five municipalities.
“In Cyprus, recycling has particular importance as, per capita, we produce 500 kilos of trash a year, which, unfortunately, puts us in the lead in this field; the EU average being 400 kilos per person,” Agriculture Minister Costas Themistocleous stated in presenting the “Co-operation for Recycling” programme at a news conference yesterday.
Large plastic bins for paper, aluminium, plastic and clear and coloured glass have been placed in nine recycling ‘islands’, four of them in the Nicosia suburb of Ayios Dhometios and one each at Latsia, outside Nicosia, Limassol, the Limassol suburb of Mesa Yeitonia and at Polis Chrysochou.
The government hopes the recycling islands, coupled with an education campaign aimed mainly at schools, will enable Cyprus to meet recycling targets set by the EU.
The director of the Agriculture Ministry’s Environment Service, Nicos Georgiades, said Cyprus had to recycle 30 per cent of its packaging waste by 2002 and 65 per cent of such waste by 2005. The EU also defined lower targets for other types of rubbish, such as organic waste and paper.
The EU is footing half of the £300,000 bill for the initiative through its LIFE programme. The European Commission’s representative in Cyprus, Ambassador Donato Chiarini, said he was confident the pilot recycling effort would do the trick: “The grass-roots approach adopted will lead to a snow-balling effect and recycling will be adopted by all Cypriots,” he said.
“We want to get the message across that recycling is necessary both for the environment and for economic reasons,” Minister Themistocleous stated. He said the eventual aim was to make recycling a commercially viable sector of the economy.
The Minister said the pilot scheme, set to run till July, would serve to point the government in the right direction for possible nationwide schemes in the future. “We will get a good picture from the pilot scheme, as we know what is produced in each category of trash in each participating municipality and can gauge the response,” Themistocleous said.
Environment service officer Costas Papacostas pointed out that recycling was only one way of tackling the island’s waste management problems and not an end in itself. “The aim has to be to cultivate some consumption awareness and not just to collect some cans,” he said.
He said an infrastructure for recycling the wastes collected in the bins had to be encouraged locally. At the moment, only small quantities of aluminium, plastic and glass are recycled in Cyprus.
Vassilis Vassiliades, of the Cyprus Association of Recyclers, said members were willing to pay municipalities for the waste deposited in recycling bins.
YOUR NEAREST RECYCLING ISLAND
Ayios Dhometios, Nicosia
Primary School A – Kyriacos Matsis Avenue
Primary School B – Kentavrou Street
Primary School C – Junction of Pentelikou and Promitheos Streets
Ayios Dhometios Gymnasium – Junction of Ayios Pavlos Avenue and Demokratias Street.
Latsia, Nicosia
Primary School and Gymnasium C – October 28th Street
Mesa Yeitonia, Limassol
Kalogeropoulou Gymnasium – Junction of Marcos Drakos and Mykinon Streets
Limassol
Tsirion Gymnasium – Thespios Street, Ayia Phyla
Polis Chrysochou
Marios Avenue
The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.
