„Landscape surgery"

The Waste Prevention Alliance initiated the "landscape surgery campaign" in the autumn of 2000. During the first five years 628 groups, mostly non-governmental organisations, educational institutions, and local communities reported or eliminated illegal waste dumps.

The morals and the attitude of the society will slowly be changed regarding the culture of public hygiene in the coming 5-10 years. A sign of the change the Ministry of Environment, the Hungary-tourism office and a television channel also started campaigns in the past few years, not mentioning the many local initiatives.

This year the HuMuSz initiated the cooperation of the disparate campaigns. By the summer we have signed memorandum of understanding with some the key players, We hope the in 2007 the campaigns will reach synergies.

The fight against illegal waste dumps will have results only in long term. On the one hand, social collaboration and voluntarism must be strengthened, and on the other hand, we must find sources to eliminate illegal waste dumps. Public parks, playgrounds, and sports fields were built on the cleaned sites and local orders were created to prevent illegal waste dumping. The groups - often with the help of the local government - set and are still setting up patrols to maintain the order on the cleaned territories. According to our conception, our program is primarily to raise attention, to change attitudes and to educate people about their local environment.