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2010 Archives

08-07-2010.
Ecological Oplaneti se! Do recycle Campaign Finished

International cycling ecological caravan, after covering 600 km through 11 cities, marked the end of „Oplaneti se! Do recycle“ campaign by festive crossing the finish line on Ada Ciganlija.

Ecological „Oplaneti se! Do recycle“ campaign was realized by the ecological network Green List of Serbia, in coordination with Balkan Community Initiatives Fund (BCIF), Young Researchers of Serbia and partner support from Institute for Sustainable Communities (ISC), and with financial aid from United States Agency for International Development (USAID). Partners in the realization of the campaign are Telenor foundation and ASUS company.

The last three kilometers the cyclists covered from Sports centre „Milan Gale Muškatirović“ in Dorćol to Ada Ciganlija, along with the representatives of the United States embassy and USAID. Nemanja Radović, Assistant to the City’s Secretary for Sports and Youth of the City of Belgrade, Darinka Radojević, Coordinator of the National Strategy for Sustainable Development of the Cabinet of the Serbian Government’s Vice President for the EU Integrations, Albert Cevalos, Executive Director of Institute for Sustainable Communities (ISC) and Ivana Vranjican, Manager for Environment Protection of Telenor company spoke to the participants. They thanked the participants of the caravan, and stressed that recycling is the mutual task of the country, the institutions and the citizens. After that, Asus company had a promotion of the new ecologically responsible Bamboo notebook, which was made of natural materials.

The caravan went through 11 cities in eleven days (Vranje – Vučje – Leskovac – Niš – Knjaževac – Zaječar – Bor – Žagubica – Petrovac – Kostolac – Bela Crkva – Pančevo – Beograd), in which 30 cyclists were sending out ecological messages to citizens, institutions and other actors in the community about the importance of recycling. This year the caravan had the double number of participants, among which there were 11 girls from Serbia, as well as one participant from Holland. The oldest participant is 67, and the youngest 18 years old.

By Oplaneti se! Do recycle campaign, Green List of Serbia wishes to influence the institutions in charge, the citizens, ecological organizations and other factors in the community to participate more actively in solving of waste disposal problem, within the scope of their jurisdiction, through creating conditions for selection and separation of waste, as a necessary condition for the recycling process.

In “Oplaneti se! Do recycle” ecological campaign ecological workshops, actions in gathering, selecting and recycling of waste were organized in 12 cities in Serbia, by which a message was sent to institutions in charge that it is necessary for them to more actively participate in the solving of waste disposal problem in Serbia.

Serbian citizens throw 5000 tons of waste on daily basis. More than half of that waste is being put on illegal landfills which are placed next to rivers, city squares and parks for children. In European Union countries on average 40 per cent of waste material is recycled annually, while in Serbia that number is four times less.

Recycling industry hires 1,5 million people in the world, while the estimations show that Serbia annually throws away about 50 million euros in the form of secondary waste which may be recycled.

Coordinator of „Oplaneti se! Do recycle“ campaign Vladimir Radojičić at the end of the campaign pointed out that: „ Waste management represents a big problem in Serbia. Green List of Serbia managed to mobilize over 6000 citizens during the three months of the campaign, which were directly included in our activities. The fact that a great number of the citizens of Serbia are willing to actively participate in the actions, which for their goal have the promotion of waste selection and recycling, is encouraging. I think that this time the citizens sent a clear message to the institutions in charge that they want to live in a country where there are conditions for the recycling of old newspapers, plastic bottles and other waste which may be used again.“

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