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To Be or Not to Be. The Law of Picnic.

Published 10th November 2009 - 2 comments - 1335 views -

image via Metropotam

Green Revolution (re)initiated a draft law that aims to regulate the Romanian Sunday picnics in order to combat the negative effects of most of these outdoor activities.

Just like in many countries, Romanian picnics are easy forms of  relaxation during the weekend. Because most people here live in apartment buildings and most cities lack green spaces, Romanians drive to the outskirts of their city where they lay their blankets, turn the music loud so nobody hears anybody else, cut down branches, put up a fire, grill boxes of mici (This word can't be translated, you're either here for the live culinary experience or you lose it.) and sausages, pork up, get back in the car and go home. Most of the times, because of the lack of education, all the resulting garbage is left as is without anyone raising any finger to clean after themselves.

Hence, tonnes of waste that pollute the waters and forests.

Hence, the initiative of the Green Revolution.

This 'law of picnic' project asks local authorities to set aside special locations for picnics, locations equipped with selective waste collection bins, toilets, water, electricity, special burning fire points and playgrounds. They basically ask for something similar to what Benno reported from the CO2pehagen, but for individual use, not just for certain bigger events like music festivals.

So far, so good.

But this whole affair rooted earlier this year when the Romanian Ministry of Environment declared they were working on a law that would fine people for not cleaning their garbage after going out for a picnic. There were a couple of days when all media discussed about this possibility, about its implications and/or its use and then things began to fade away. Meanwhile, the old minister is gone, another one took his place for a while and the law of picnic seemed to be completely compromised because the new minister didn't agree on the utility of something that was partly covered in other laws. Unfortunately, no other related laws are respected either and the environment is on a downturn.

Anyway, this book has many other pages, especially because we no longer have a minister of the environment for the time being. We no longer have any ministers in fact, but that's another story. So, although people don't have picnics every so often lately, because the weather (finally) started to look like winter in the neighborhood, Green Revolution brought the law of picnics back in the news.

So you see, until clear legislation is set and starts to be respected by the citizens, individual self-education is the only one that pushes forward towards a cleaner local environment. Either we reuse and recycle or we turn the lights off every time we leave a room, every little thing we do helps. And you can't imagine the satisfaction you have when 2 or 3 more people change their behavior every week and start doing their own share of green living.

Category: Sustainable Development, | Tags: romania, green, law of picnic,



Comments

Federico Pistono on 11th November 2009:

So you see, until clear legislation is set and starts to be respected by the citizens, individual self-education is the only one that pushes forward towards a cleaner local environment.
We need both. Sadly, until the latter is satisfied, the former is not likely to happen.

Daniel Nylin Nilsson on 11th November 2009:

I also believe in self education - legislation, especially in this field can sooo easily be ignored. But setting up moe waste bins wouldn’t hurt I guess.

I still remember the faboluos place in Chisinau. “Mici voinici, numai aici!” :D

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