Campaign against illegal waste dumps

In the autumn of 2000, we started launching of our campaign to eliminate illegal waste dumps. In our opinion, every group of the society has to join to ’disarm’ the masses of illegally piled up waste and to prevent the creation of new dumps. Our conviction is that programs initiated by non-governmental organisations, educational institutions, and local communities can be very successful in solving such an environmental problem. We believe that only in 5-10 years’ the morals and the attitude of the society will be changed regarding the culture of public hygiene. That is why our campaign 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. According to our conception, our program is primarily to raise attention, to change attitudes and to educate people about their local environment. Every year 150-200 groups apply for the campaign. In 2003 and 2004 altogether 1280 illegal waste dumps were mapped and 171 out of them were eliminated. In the cities and villages participating in the program there have been a moral and cultural change of attitude to the practice of waste management. 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.