ESG Radio Newsletter
Key words: Clean up the World Presentations Climate Change and Storms 2nd Power Station visit Sewage Contract Idling DPC
Clean up the World has now seen 13 years of campaigning for a cleaner, litter free Gibraltar. Engaging the public, on a community wide basis, has been central to its continued success in helping achieve real change on the ground over time. We are still surprised to come across people who have not heard about the campaign so a quick reminder here:
Every year we see several schools, clubs and associations, businesses, agencies and many individuals take part in clearing rubbish from nature hotspots throughout Gibraltar. The widespread effort helps to highlight the issues and impacts of social littering, industrial waste and fly tipping in open spaces in Gibraltar. It brings the issues alive to those who take part and makes a strong case for civic pride and how we are each responsible for looking after our homeland.
This hands-on action has motivated others in the community to launch parallel initiatives, which are gathering pace today. This issue of ever growing waste and litter is a modern world problem, not just ours, but, like many other busy, urbanised communities, we also need to get a grip on our waste issues and improve our record in protecting our natural environment. There are some European countries achieving incredible results on waste management so it clearly can be done.
The date for this years Clean up has not yet been finalised but will take place in September. Final details will be provided soon. As Gibraltar has grown and changed over the years so too are it’s cleaning and maintenance needs and we therefore hope to see the awarding of the new cleaning contract issued as soon as possible.
Our work is not confined to the clean up weekend though with on-going clean ups, certificate ceremonies, talks and presentations going on since the start of the year. Watch out for more details to be released in the media soon.
Moving on to other issues – the recent gale force winds remind us of our place in the world and how very fortunate we are to live in relative safety and comfort for much of the time. Not so for other parts of the world where flooding, severe artic conditions and general mayhem are now generally accepted to be occurring with greater frequency. All points to the need for communities everywhere to address climate change and green up their economies, services and activities and we in Gibraltar, small though we are, are reminded of this responsibility too, especially as we lick our wounds and carry out what are thankfully minor repairs to damages sustained in recent weeks.
The ESG took up the opportunity of visiting the new Power Station and LNG site recently as more of the infrastructure is in place and real-time monitoring equipment beginning to arrive. It was a most interesting 2 hour visit where the group welcomed being able to ask many questions from the project leaders and would like to thank the Minister for the Environment for making this possible. We continue to monitor and closely follow the projects progress and will be releasing a press release on this latest visit this week.
The issuing of the Sewage Contract is welcomed by the group who has campaigned for this for many years. We also welcome posters going up in bus stops reminding drivers not to idle their engines unnecessarily.
The Next DPC session is on Tuesday the 20th February and you will be able to obtain details for that agenda a week beforehand on the Town Planning website.
Go to: www.esg-gib.net for details on all our newsletters and press releases. Contact us at esg@gibtelecom.net if you want more information. Thanks for listening.
