Rubbish!

Why oh why in 2016, TWENTY SIXTEEN does Gibraltar have piles and piles and piles of stinking plastic bags stacked up against walls and lampposts at nearly every other corner, in broad daylight, providing a welcome feast for cats, birds and apes. Yes apes. We have apes wandering around our streets willy-nilly, in Europe. Now I am not having a go at the apes, I love our dear little monkeys, but these critters have hands, unlike seagulls, cats, rats or…cockroaches, they go into the rubbish, open it up and pick bits out and then fling them about. We in Gibraltar have to be super cautious when it comes to leaving household waste around.

We are often heard criticising our neighbours, in that I mean Spain and not our actual neighbours although I am sure that many of you may have issues with your next door neighbours…Anyway, when it comes to rubbish collection the good old Spaniards seem to be doing something right. Can it really be that difficult? Assess how much rubbish we produce, what sort of rubbish it is, where the hot spots are and then provide adequate vessels in which to put it in? Easy? Obviously not. Now, what we don’t need is a committee that meets once a month but then doesn’t actually meet once a month because one of the members is on holiday or off sick. No committees! All we need to do is copy what Spain does, yes, I said it, copy them because on this particular issue they have got it right. How is it that a huge city like Barcelona is far, far cleaner than Gibraltar?

In Barcelona they have big bins with foot pedals so you can open it up when your hands are full of bags. We need heavy lids so that apes cannot lift them or the wind blow them off. These bins should be put in the correct places and not outside someone’s front door in Turnbull’s Lane. Once these are in place then we have to train everyone to use them and enforce those fines! Civic Pride I scream, Civic Pride! We’ve all seen the person who throws an empty coke can from their car window, I am always hooting my car horn at them but what use does that do?

People need to be reminded that it is a crime to litter our streets but at the same time we must provide the right places for refuse to be taken to. How long that will take I don’t know but it should be prioritised. It’s really not cool to have refuse spilling out of our bins when there is a very simple solution.