Summary Theme 5:  Environment

At home:

All garbage (including paper, plastic, fruit and vegetables, glass, batteries and metal) used to go in the same bin when our parents were young. Actually, it’s not that long ago since we started separating the garbage.

Nowadays, a lot of people in the Netherlands separate their garbage in many ways. For each of the fore called kinds of garbage there is a place of disposal. For instance, you can separate glass in three different colors: green, brown and white. Also quite unique (we think) is the possibility of separating plastic. However, a lot of people are still too lazy (or they’re lacking time or maybe there are other reasons?) to separate their garbage as much as they are supposed to. Also there are always people who just throw their candy wrappings away in nature, not even caring if there’s a bin around. In the Netherlands you can get a fine for that (70 euros) but off course it doesn’t occur much that people are being caught in the act.

In future, we expect that there will be more and more to separate (considering garbage disposal off course) and that people will be more obliged to do so.

We have become aware of the fragility of our precious planet and we should do everything that’s in our power to protect it. After all, who wants to destroy his children’s house?

School:

Our school isn’t clean. There are more litterbins in our school than there are together in all three MacDonald’s places in Tilburg. Still the school floors are full of garbage. Especially in de school cantina it’s always a mess. Every 5 meters there is a bin, but still a lot of students are not able to throw their waste in one of them, apparently. Off course, there are teachers who keep an eye on the crowd during breaks and it helps a little, but they don’t have eyes on their backs. We think it’s more a question of mentality of some of the students.

We interviewed one of the teachers who has been in our school for many years. He said that things actually have been worse, that the floors were covered with litter from the early morning till the end of day. Nowadays there is schedule that obliges students to help cleaning up the school. Every class has to clean up the school and its surroundings for one week a year. This means that students are made (a little) responsible for the mess they make. So there must be some progression considering school environment, if you compare past and present. But, like we said, we think still we need some kind of mentality change in our school in this matter.  

The city of Tilburg:

'A clean city means a livable city’. That’s the sentence you can find a lot in Tilburg near litterbins and garbage depots. The city of Tilburg has started a campaign against pollution. People are being warned a lot about the 70 euro fine we’ve mentioned before and there are a lot of litterbins being placed, especially in high polluted areas.

We asked a municipal counselor about what else Tilburg is doing for the environment. He said: ‘We have set up a bunch of restricted areas were particular lorries may not drive. This is something we have done to favor a better quality of air. Every household has two green containers for litter: a small one for wastepaper and a large one which is split in one ‘green garbage’ section and one for other garbage. The large one is to be emptied every week, the paper once a month. Also a good point of the city, and of our country off course: wherever you want to travel, you will be encouraged to go by bike. We have excellent facilities for cycling. And therefore, everyone does it. Cycle on!