What do people do when garbage bins are full and the local council has no money to collect it? Fundraising! Residents of Farkadonas village by Trikala in Central Greece decided to raise funds in order to fill up the tanks of municipality garbage collectors and get rid of the smelly trash.
Local media claim, the city council was unable to provide even simple solutions to issues of the daily life. Therefore the residents of the village decided to do something on their own way. Get money form each resident and pay for tanking the trucks.
PS To tell you the truth I don’t know if the issue is something between local political fractions or that the city council is out of money due to funding cuts and 1,000 other reasons. But fundraising for the garbage? Not bad idea, showing that private initiative is high on the agenda in times of austerity and recession.
In many European countries it is perfectly normal that you pay for the disposal of your garbage. If you produce less garbage, less cost. Different systems in different countries, but I know for sure this is how it works in Switzerland, Germany and Sweden. It also gives you a good incentive to be more environmental friendly. 🙂
in Greece we pay also to municipalities fees for the disposal of garbage. Who said it was for free?
Of course I understand that in some way you are paying for it. Its just that I always was under the impression that garbage collection was financed through the main municipality budget and not through “garbage fees”. My point was only that its very different when a service is financed through taxes compared to direct fees. However, based on your answer, I guess there are garbage fees collected somehow outside the regular tax system to cover garbage collection? And in this case the municipality simply used the money for something else than what it is supposed to be usedfor? (or failed to collect it or something).
Don’t get me wrong, I am honestly interested in how those kind of things works in Greece.
I don’t get you wrong, I try to explain. there problem may have to do with the cut funds by the state to municipalities. and really, it was not explained what exactly was the problem for the lack of garbage collection there in the village. lack of fuel funding? internal problems? opposition parties criticism? the garbage workers are not in strike.
BTW: there is hardly any institution here that does not ‘relocate’ money. and not only in Greece.