Radio Broadcast ESG 29th September 2011

This radio broadcast would not be complete without mentioning the incredible community effort which took place in Gibraltar a few days ago for the annual Clean up the World Campaign. Despite the great task involved in organising 500 volunteers and co-ordinating this with the pre-clean up Parade and Exhibition, we can confirm that Gibraltar enjoyed another successful Clean up the World event, in this, our seventh year. But what does the mountain of rubbish we collected tell us? Surely that the message of keeping Gibraltar tidy and of respecting our environment is still not reaching everyone. This is why we believe it is essential for a number of measures to be applied by the authorities if this ongoing and negative situation is to change.

Among the measures we consider important are:

• A sustained information campaign to reach every household and business on why its important to keep Gibraltar tidy as well as concrete information as to where all types of waste should be deposited

• Improved facilities for rubbish in Gibraltar is necessary – the new bin enclosures within the town area are a huge step forward and will bring improvements to many locations who have long suffered smells, flies and worse from open dumping sites, especially in the hot summer months

• We still need to significantly improve the way we manage the many streams of waste which are stock piled and prepared for export- eg: Gibraltar General Support Services, previously known as Community projects, have been moved from their Buena Vista Site to a new location on Europa Advance Road- There has been no information made public about this move so how is the community supposed to know of its location? Another issue is that the new spot is completely open to the elements and very near the sea which means that some waste material is already heading sea bound –this is not a good plan. A centrally located Eco or Waste Park to accommodate all types of waste is essential in our small, densely populated land which sees so many millions of tourists per year

• We have also long advocated for enclosure of the city dump which receives and manages our household rubbish which just this morning was emptying its guts out onto the busy road and the sea due to the gusty conditions. Plans for enclosing this site are ongoing but this surely should be treated as an urgent issue

• And apart from increasing the amount of glass and cans recycled on the Rock with an active programme to engage all sectors of the community, we believe that bars, clubs and restaurants who produce a lot of this material should be encouraged and enforced to separate on for recycling

• Finally we get to enforcement. Even with education, awareness, the right facilities in place, communities everywhere will always have people who care little about civic pride and the environment. So these offenders need to be shown by the authorities that littering and dumping is not permitted- the only way to do this is to issue fines. This, we believe is important and while GoG states that we already have enforcement officers- we strongly believe that dedicated litter wardens focusing only on this task is a critical need. May not be a vote winner but if we are as proud a community as we display to be during our National Day activities, surely we see the need to look after our homeland and environment in this way??

The ESG is busy working on the final touches to a short documentary it has commissioned on the Cleanup Campaign locally and how this has progressed through the years. We hope this will prove to be a great aide in keeping the Clean up message alive through the coming year as well as reflect how our community, together, is now actively tackling serious dumping and littering issues by increasing investment and resources to better protect our natural environment. Thanks again to all who gave so much of their time and support. Remember we do undertake sporadic clean ups through the year so do email us at esg@gibtelecom.net or call at 200-48996 if you would like to be involved.

Thanks for listening.