“THE ENVIRONMENT IS PLEADING WITH US TO GET OUR HEADS TOGETHER”
Raising Awareness of the littering in Cardiff City Centre
Cardiff, the capital of Wales, has a wonderful natural environment. Here, nature, green space, historical places are protected with great care. A good recycling system has been established in the City. Although environmental awareness among people, environmentally sensitive projects, innovations, new generation recyclable materials and many environmentally friendly steps have increased in recent years. The seriousness of the damage we have done to the environment, we still have some habits that we need to change. We are often facing with situations such as the use of plastic that is not suitable for recycling, food-wasting and throwing rubbish into the environment, including broken glasses.
Rubbish on Cathays Terrace, 01.07.2021
The remnants of weekends in Cardiff Bay (Image: Steffan Rhys), 03.04.2021
Source: https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/cardiff-bay-again-left-under-20314270
Insufficient rubbish bins with unconscientious and insensitivity cause people to leave their rubbish in front of their houses and outside and to throw their rubbish on the ground. In addition, the fact that leaving the rubbish outside even for a few minutes paves the way for other creatures living with us (especially seagulls) to scatter rubbish bags. Here are some good and inspirational local projects, documents and some ideas to raise our awareness, learn and implement:
Awarded Local Projects
- City to Sea: The Refill Cymru expansion will encourage people in the Cardiff region to live with less plastic, and support companies transitioning away from disposable single-use packaging to refillable and reusable systems. The free Refill app will connect consumers with places to Refill food, drink and groceries.
- Link: https://www.citytosea.org.uk/
- ACE-Action in Caerau, Ely: ACE plans a community-based loan service for household items in west Cardiff. Our ‘library of things’ will support local residents to stretch household budgets, learn new skills, and minimise waste. This will complement currently thriving initiatives at the Dusty Forge community centre and link with the Benthyg Cymru network.
- Link: https://www.aceplace.org/
- FareShare Cymru: FareShare Cymru works to fight hunger by tackling food waste. We take surplus food from the food industry and redistribute this to organisations that help feed people in need. This project focuses on enabling us to extend our service into West Wales, supporting 10 local organisations.
- Link: https://fareshare.org.uk/fareshare-centres/cymru-south-wales/
- Llanrumney Hall Community Trust: Increase affordable and equal access to useful household items, food, clothes, composting and skill-sharing in Llanrumney, reducing local consumption of resources, preventing waste through repair and re-use of unwanted/broken items steering them away from land-fill, encouraging development of a local resilient circular economy and responding to the climate change emergency.
- Link: https://www.llanrumneyhall.org/
Documents
- Beyond Recycling-Welsh Government:
Link: https://gov.wales/sites/default/files/publications/2021-03/beyond-recycling-strategy-document.pdf
- Recycling Waste Management Strategy-Cardiff Council:
Link: https://cardiff.moderngov.co.uk/documents/s21769/Appendix%201.pdf
Ideas & Things We Can Do TO HELP!
- Raising Awareness of the detriment to the environment we live if we do not change our “habits”
- Instead of throwing the rubbish to the ground, we can use recyclable rubbish bag/bag that you can easily be carried with you to take it to the bin, or if you have a small amount of rubbish take it home.
- Throwing any rubbish made of glass on the ground is a threat both for the environment and for your health and Safety when it breaks. Also, the broken glasses are detrimental to car wheels and bicycles. Glassware can be creatively turned into reusable items at home.
- As Cardiff municipality, increasing the number of rubbish bins in streets and the duration of collection can also prevent rubbish from scattering on the ground.
- Maybe some government initiatives and/or incentive to promote the collection of plastic bottles, containers, including the food and beverages
It is the responsibility of each of us to protect our environment for the benefit of mankind for our future generations. These small and simple solutions are great steps to prevent environmental pollution. Change is in our hands!
“WAKE UP PEOPLE”
