Cyprus-Forum.com

[webbo]

With the introduction of the new brightly coloured recycling bins located at various points around the towns of Cyprus will they ever be used correctly? A set of these bins has appeared close to my house and being familiar with the practice of recycling have started to sort my rubbish into categories and depositing in the said bins.

Much to my disappointment it appears not many other people seem to know what they are for and they are just using them as extra waste bins for the disposal of any old unwanted junk, building waste, garden waste, fridges, rotten fruit etc etc.

Second point. Does Cyprus have facilities to dispose of the said recycled waste as per EU directives or is it just an attempt to pull the wool over the eyes of the Money Men in the EU. It appears to me that one lorry turns up to take all the "recylables", empties all the bins into the one l;orry and departs for who knows where. I suspect it is heading the same way as normal waste to the local tip!

The plus side to these bins is it seems to have reduced slightly the amount of fly tipping going on in the locality.

For these bins to work they need to be redesigned so that only the designed waste will fit, not the whole lid lifting. Trees need to be made into paper before they are deposited in the recycling bin for recycling!

[Niki]

Oh no!!!

I thought I was going to get away from the 'bin police' in the UK. It is a total farce here - I really hope the same isn't going to happen in Cyprus.

They ship all UK recycled bin material to China - very environmentally practical considering the fuel it uses!

[RichardB]

I know that the Mayor of Nicosia has admitted that there are no recycling facilities to go with the bins but said something along the lines of "at least the people will be used to the system when one is in place"

So thats alright then !!.

[mountainman]

You couldn't make it up

[raymanuva]

Recycling... i see no recycling here for another decade. The problem with no places to dump garbage is arising now, but there is no recycling infrastructure yet in place...none. Some private paper recycling, thats all. I wonder how they do it in Israel, more people, less landspace...

[RichardB]

CONFUSION reigns supreme on the recycling front, as the House Environment committee discovered last Wednesday. Rival ministries cannot even agree on the colours of the bins for recyclable waste. The Agriculture Ministry insists that the bins for glass should be green, while the Interior Ministry has decided they should be white, and neither side is willing to compromise.
Deputies would have been even more confused if they were told that Nicosia Municipality has a completely different colour code, not that it matters that much as the contents of the Mike’s tiny recycling bins are not recycled anyway – they are taken to the Kotsiatis rubbish dump. In the zany Zampelas’ municipality, blue bins are for glass, metal and plastic, while the agriculture ministry uses yellow bins for plastic. But in Nicosia, yellow bins are for paper and cardboard, while the ministry wants paper and cardboard in the brown bins.
I will spare you the details about the interior ministry’s recycling colours.

With Thanks to the Cyprus Mail for the above

[unique_earthling]

I nearly fell of my chair laughing at how ridiculous it all is and yes mountain man you really couldnt make it all up.. I just had the visions of people painstakingly sorting it all out...ermmm now glass in there, and oh yes garden rubbish over there and mmm ahh!! paper there.. And then a big flipping truck picks it all up and mixes it all up.. Make a great tv comedy. Hysterical stuff

[reportfromcyprus]

I haven't seen anything like that in Limassol yet. I think the real problem is air pollution here, though - sometimes the dust and smoke is so thick on the roads that it's like driving into a cloud.

[cypezokyli]

allow me to say, that a mess with the colours can happen even in places with long recycling tradition.
in germany practically every state has a diferrent colour for the bins, let aside that for the grüner punkt ( the green bin) you need a gelbe sack (yellow bag).

as for the mess in the garbage. when i used to live in a traditional student camp (east germany , or later on short in berlin) , nobody bothered to explain to foreigners how it is done (which was bad) , but the foreigners didnot make the slightest effort to, at least, not use the bins for "glass" or "paper" for their bio-garbage (which was worse ).

on the other hand, since i mooved in an appartment in the southern germany, the laws are way stricter. if you put mettal or plastic in the bio, then a machine will detect it and they will simply not pick it up. so you can either a) leave it there in front of your door stinging b) pay 50 euros and they take it c) have some fun by searching through the garbage in order to find what is wrong in there.
now tell me if you will dare make a mistake in the seperation for a second time

[webbo]

Yes these bins are in Limassol!
Sounds like the German system is the way forward. Don't think it will happen in Cyprus for some time to come though. Maybe the government needs a few heavy fines from Europe for them to realise that they must start to enforce rather than pretend it is not a problem.
The fact that the recycling bins are the same shape and size as the normal roadside bins doesn't help the matter.
I know it is a new concept to Cyprus not to just take your crap and dump it down the nearest hillside, into the nearest river bed etc etc. What's the problem the goats don't mind! Personally I would enjoy walking in the beautiful countryside where it not for the piles of junk around every corner.