By
Heidi Trautmann
Something
has to be done – urgently – members of ÇADER,
an educational cultural association in Catalköy thought and started, some
months ago, a project to support the planned environmental law to reduce the
use of plastic bags by requesting the industry, super markets and shops to
charge money and not distribute plastic bags for free. It is a tiny step in the
right direction.
Women,
children and their parents work together in this project that aims at several
different fields of our daily life in house and garden, undertakes to give
advice how to go about environmental protection and what can the individual do
and how to do it.
The
best and in my opinion only way is to approach the problems by involving the schools,
young pupils, to explain and teach them, for example, how to reduce plastic use
in general, how to manage house and garden waste, how to behave in their
community. To further explain what the responsibilities of a citizen are; even
if being the youngest ones, for example behavior in traffic, which I personally
am happy to hear. The aim is to reach all parents and through them a wider
circle, hoping that the activities will be taken up by other communities,
creating an island wide net.
One
of the activities found great interest and response in the public: Shopping
bags made from cotton material to counter the use of plastic, to create
awareness of the serious problems of waste control, to bring to our attention
that our oceans carry islands of plastic in their midst and that we get the
poison back via the fish we eat. A first step again, plastic should be
forbidden altogether and replaced by a material that is less destructive to
nature.
Women
and children go and offer the shopping bags they have prepared at home or in ÇADER’s
place, on markets and via internet. Shops have been donating lengths of
material to produce these bags.
The
latest event was at the Christmas Market taking place at the Pia Bella Hotel in
Girne which I attended and I am now the happy owner of three shopping bags, so
nicely done with much creativity. Women
and Children Power combined…. they can be proud of their initial success.
Please
find here the link to their facebook site so you can follow their activities.
https://www.facebook.com/cevreveben/