Time to clean up Cyprus… again

By Dominique Miltiadou

CYPRIOTS are producing two kilos of garbage a day which places Cyprus in the first position on the per capita (per person) waste production in the EU.

According to data gathered in 2010 annual production of waste per person amounts to 760kg.

These figures are followed closely by Luxembourg, Denmark and Ireland whose production ranges between 600 and 700kg.

The figures were cited on Thursday at a news conference to announce this year’s ‘Let’s Do It Cyprus’, which will be taking place on April 6.

“We are clean inside of our houses but not outside of them,” said volunteers head Yiannis Yiannakis.

Already 90 municipalities and communities, 51 organisations and 16 government departments, including the president’s office and the defence ministry have registered their support for the event.

‘Let’s Do It Cyprus’ is part of the global campaign ‘Let’s Do It World’ which is ‘one of the fastest-expanding citizen and volunteer movements in history’ as well as the largest of its type in the world.

The movement initiated in Estonia when 50,000 people joined forces in order to get rid of 10,000 tons of illegal garbage. The entire country was cleaned ‘in just five hours.’

Today there are more than 100 countries involved, including Cyprus.

Cyprus has participated once before, in September 2012 when 4,000 volunteers showed up and collected over 20 tonnes of garbage.

‘Let’s Do It Cyprus’ wants to surpass this number of volunteers this year.

The aim is to be as successful as possible in getting rid of all the waste in one day and then maintaining things in that way, organisers said.

 

 

 

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.