2023-11-25 11:00:08
Biowaste. Photo: Canva
“This is just some kind of torture,” I said to myself and, trying not to breathe, I walked away from the brown container fragrant with the smell of rotting biowaste, where I had just thrown out my neatly tied biodegradable bag.
My bag immediately sank into a fetid mass that filled the biowaste collection container by almost two-thirds. Probably, this is something to be happy about – that is, how actively the Narvians took up the implementation of the European Union directive.
But there is one “but”: growing unsanitary conditions. Now the only annoying thing is the stench from the container itself, its dirty sticky handle and the slippery brown path from the door of our “waste house” to the container: probably when people empty their tea bags, cleaning and food debris from the trash can or a regular bag into the brown container , splashes fall on the floor.
But now the temperature is below zero, what will happen in spring and summer? If this continues, there will be swarms of flies hovering over our “waste house”! Actually, what changed after the first of November, when brown containers for collecting biowaste were installed in every apartment association in Narva? For a long time now, many Narva residents have learned to collect and throw away various food packaging separately – milk cartons, yogurt and cottage cheese boxes, and so on. What was left over went into regular garbage bags and was thrown into a mixed waste container, but, in fact, it was biowaste. Only now they need to be collected in biodegradable bags, which cost three times more than regular ones.
Therefore, it is not surprising that not everyone bought them. According to the instructions given by the local government, you can also throw away biowaste in paper bags or wrapped in old newspapers, since paper is also a decomposing material. Of course, this is the most budget option, but it is unlikely to get rid of the smell all year round and flies in the summer. You can, of course, store biowaste in compost heaps, as private homeowners do – cheap and cheerful. But it is unlikely that our townspeople will be enthusiastic about this.
This means there is only one way out: oblige everyone to throw away biowaste only in biodegradable bags, and nothing else. But first, it is necessary to ensure that biodegradable bags cost no more than regular plastic ones – considering how much harm plastic causes to the environment, this would be no less a step towards an environmentally friendly lifestyle than even the separate collection of biowaste itself. What do you, Narvians, think about this?
Antonina Vrednaya
The post Why collecting biowaste gives me a gag reflex first appeared on gazeta.ee.
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