Garbage day in Estonia

May 07, 2008
In cooperation with BNS

TURI- As reported by The Moscow Times, tens of thousands of Estonians could be seen in  fields, streets, forests and riverbanks to collect garbage and junk to commemorate the first national day of cleanup.

Using Google Maps to mark trash sites on the Internet and global positioning technology to locate the junk on the ground, Estonians collected everything from tractor batteries to plastic bottles and paint tins Saturday and brought it, often in their own cars, to central dumps.

The campaign, which aimed to collect up to 10,000 tons of garbage, was organized by Internet entrepreneurs. "It is not really about the rubbish. It is about changing people's mind-sets. Next year, it might be something else," said Tiina Urm, spokeswoman for the event.

Estonia had a large of garbage after it independence in 1991, but it the problem has gotten worse. "It has to be done, it can't stay here," said Mats Eek, 17, cleaning up a site in the middle of a forest near Turi, 100 kilometers from Tallinn. What will happen to the trash after garbage dumps have been overfilled? One entrepreneur is thinking green and suggests the garbage be used for fuel. Recycling is also slowly becoming more and more popular, as the government also initiated a recycling program nationwide.