“Oh, my old man’s a dustman/He wears a dustman’s hat/He wears cor blimey trousers/And he lives in a council flat” runs the refrain of the song with which Lonnie Donegan, the “king of Skiffle” reached the top of the singles charts in Britain, Ireland, Australia, Canada and New Zealand in 1960.
Nothing could be further from the image projected by the head of DEDISA, Kostas Paterakis, in an interview on Nea TV on Tuesday 22nd November. Thoughtful and softly spoken, Mr Paterakis was talking to presenter Gogo Kallidonaki on the afternoon programme Sto Kokkino, to mark European Week for Waste Reduction 2022, which runs from 19th to 27th November.
DEDISA (Inter-municipal Enterprise for the Management of Solid Waste) is the organisation which manages waste disposal for the municipalities of the nomos of Chania, not only at operational level but also in terms of formulating and enacting policies related to waste disposal and increasingly, recycling. It is a topic which, as became clear during their conversation, is treated with the utmost seriousness.
Asked by Gogo Kallidonaki how the year had been, he said that it has been a difficult year, more so than 2019, as it has been a good tourist year – pointing out the self-evident but little thought-of issue that more people produce more waste. However, there had been planning for the reception of larger quantities at the central Chania waste depot and improvements in waste collection, such as the introduction of electric garbage trucks in the old city of Chania.
The slogan of the European Week for Waste Reduction is “Reducing, Reusing, Recycling”, and Mr Paterakis said that in terms of reaching these goals, things are moving in the right direction; habits are changing, but a lot more needs to be done. The organisation is therefore focussing on education, with DEDISA staff visiting schools to give lectures on waste disposal and recycling, and school visits to the depot so that children can see how waste is managed.
With schoolchildren becoming better informed than their parents, coming home to lecture them on what should be recycled and what not, Mr Paterakis said that we need to be sensitive to what children have to say, as we adults often fall back into bad practices through fatigue or habit. What is needed now is a move from simple recycling to “creative recycling”, and this is an educational activity. Children need to be taught how to reuse things rather than their going in the garbage.
He firmly rebutted the idea that, as is often suggested, there is little point in sorting waste for recycling since municipalities do not recycle but simply feed the sorted materials back into in the general waste stream. Municipalities now have specific targets for waste reduction by the year 2030. [The EU, for example, has committed to meet Sustainable Development Goal 12.3 to reduce food waste by 50% by 2030.] DEDISA’s participation in European Week for Waste Reduction is part of this effort.
The week began with visits to schools by DEDISA staff, and a school visit to the museum devoted to sustainable practices run by the Souda Cultural Association. Pupils from a nursery school and from the Kolymbari Primary School learned about the sustainable production of yeast, hand weaving of fabrics and carpets and some other old practices which have died out.
The DEDISA head agreed with the interviewer that the current production model has left us “living in a rubbish dump” and there is a need to re-establish old customs from the time when people produced less waste. There needs to be greater awareness of regulations which have been established, especially by the EU, he said. “We hope to arrive at a point where products are long-lasting, so we don’t need to change them every year, and need less materials for their manufacture. That’s the way which I hope we will follow.”
There is also a need for extending the use of existing products by repair or adaptation, Mr Paterakis said. “Part of the European Week for Waste Reduction will be seminars on the alteration and repair of clothing by designers in Chania who specialise in that stuff. We think that will be very useful and hope the public will attend and learn how to extend the life of these items.”
Finally, DEDISA, in collaboration with its member municipalities, is running an event entitled “Chania welcomes Sustainable Fashion” which is to take place from 11.00 am to late afternoon on Sunday 27th November in Tsouderon street, outside the offices of the Orizontas Association, which provides support for cancer victims. Participants include Colour Analyst and Image Consultant Liana Peraki and selected shops in the area and the municipality of Chania.
The event is a sale of second-hand clothing and footwear. According to a press release: “The clothing and footwear which have been collected will be in excellent condition, either unworn as they have been carefully collected by clients of Ms Peraki, or from the stock of different stores. Purchases of clothing and footwear will be for a token sum, with all the proceeds going to the Orizontas Association for philanthropic purposes.”