We started recycling some years ago, when we moved into our home.
Here all apartments were collecting the plastic bottles for recycling. Huge plastic mountains grew in the basements.
But one day this project was stopped. I remember visualising the bottles going to the garbage dump, where intrigued beings would be analyzing them, choosing them as their house or eating them piece by piece – a story we would never like to be in.
To change it, for three months we collected all our inorganic waste, cleaned up and recycled: 60kg of glass, 20kg of paper, 20 kg plastic, 15kg of fabric, 10 kg of electronic waste and 1 kg of iron.*
We are only two.
When we started this experiment, we did not expect it would have a major impact on our lives.
But it did. We consume now packed products only on rare occassions, we heavily limited the soft drinks, we have an increased awareness on our buying decisions, we live the happiness of knowing that the environment is less affected by our choices.
The story we can imagine now is of curious beings eating fresh food, naturally building their houses – and we would never stop it.
*All the money were donated to the poor people standing in line at the recycling centers. Each time we went to these centers, the majority recycling was represented by the people living on the streets.
Only 5% of waste is recycled in Romania, positioning our country on the last place in E.U.