I am aware of my surroundings. I am.

Having said that, It's only been these past months that I have noticed that we have started to cease disposing of household waste in one or two large black plastic bags, that we leave on the road side for the municipality to collect. Normally at around 0800 on a Wednesday.

The family is now taking conscious steps to separate: metals (tins essentially), plastic, cardboard (paper) and glass. The rest is general household waste.

The general waste is left for the municipality refuse team, while our recycling is taken by us into Banja Luka to be placed in the relevant containers.

Although steps are being taken to encourage recycling at the family level, Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) is still someway off from "cleaning up" it's act.

I say this, even though the many articles and posts that you can read about recycling in BiH, through your online browser of choice, might indicate otherwise.

You see there's a massive difference in saying that you'll do, or are doing, something, and actually doing it.

All levels of administration in BiH talk good games. I'll say no more.

You see, "fly-tipping" is still the way many families, especially rural ones, dispose of what we now consider recyclable.

River banks in particular highlight that. Old fridges etc plus bags of refuse just dumped.

With such an amazingly beautiful country that Bosnia and Herzegovina is, fly-tipping is a scourge, without a doubt

But.

Hopefully fly tipping is now starting to be seen as anti-social behaviour. It'll need to be seen in the context of the long game, in other words, social behaviour needs time for change to happen.

if only the locals in the area could understand the impact of their dumping of household refuse has on the local eco-system.

OK, I do get it to a point. After a violent conflict certain civil society activities take some time to get back to normal, but I am talking some 25 years on!

But still, along the banks of our beautiful river just 1000 metres away, there are still dumps of building waste, the occasional freezer or washing machines (although not so many as years ago), garden waste and much more.

And to add insult to injury, some people set fire to these areas in the naive and totally uneducated hope that this makes things better.

Here are 2 videos I made some years ago highlighting the fly tipping problems we have near us:

December 2011

August 2013

Korak po korak, step by step.

We're taking our own small steps now, and have our own coloured bags to help us split out our recyclable items.

A number of small community NGO"s are also active in recycling education. A positive.

How does recycling feature where you live?

It would be nice to know.

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