Live at HOREMIClean-up at the HOREMI community

^{A contri­bu­tion by Stefanie Reska, 1st Chair­woman Friends of HOREMI e.V.}

During our last visit in spring, I was able to stay at HOREMI for a few days and also had time to talk to the founder, Naume, about plastic pollu­tion in the surrounding village commu­ni­ties. HOREMI itself produces very little plastic waste due to the already reduced consump­tion, but as there is no waste disposal by the commu­nity, every­thing is thrown into a shallow pit behind the kitchen and even­tu­ally either buried or burnt.

Neither is a good solu­tion, but it’s still better than the method used by the neigh­bours in the village. They simply throw every­thing — from thin shop­ping bags to broken canis­ters — behind the house, where it is carried into the coun­try­side by the wind, made brittle by the sun and even­tu­ally ends up as microplas­tics in the soil. That day, Naume heard for the first time how long plastic bags take to completely decom­pose (over 100 years!) and that the resulting microplas­tics also accu­mu­late in our bodies — via the soil and plants — and make people and animals ill.

Plastic is every­where in the village — espe­cially the small, thin bags in which food or sweets are sold and which later end up covered in brown dust as tram­pled shreds on the paths or caught on plants, twitching in the wind. There are also broken soft drink bottles, half flip-flops, discarded tooth­brushes, broken plastic bowls and bags, bags, bags.

A few hours after our conver­sa­tion, on a walk through the village, I spon­ta­neously decided to set a good example and pick up the plastic lying around. A group of kids on their way to the water pump in the centre of the village watched in amaze­ment as I picked up the dusty scraps and stuffed them into one of the slightly larger plastic bags. Cans, Coke bottles, deter­gent packets and lots of uniden­ti­fi­able mate­rial dulled by the sun.

After ten minutes, I not only had two bulging bags in my hand and dust on my face, but also two dozen onlookers — women, men, chil­dren, who eyed me from a distance and, with puzzled faces, were clearly wondering what was going on with me (I wondered at this point whether I was possibly about to set an example of how to completely discredit your­self in public …).

Then a little girl came up to me and, with a ques­tioning smile, brought me a plastic bag she had pulled out of a bush — my relief at this sign of soli­darity must have been palpable. Encour­aged, the next child brought another bag, a third picked up a broken canister, a few minutes later there were six chil­dren, then a dozen or so, sprinting in all direc­tions laughing and picking up partic­u­larly cool plastic trophies.

The atmos­phere was now euphoric as what was prob­ably the Horemi commu­ni­ty’s first clean-up flashmob triumphantly made its way through the village. Adults nodded to us with smiles and thumbs up, the chil­dren and I exchanged high-fives with each succes­sive plastic bottle catch. After half an hour, we had filled twelve large sacks into which we had stuffed loads of smaller bags.

Thanks to the super-moti­vated task force, the differ­ence in the village was indeed already visible — at first glance, no major rubbish was notice­able — and the kids posed proudly in victory pose in front of the large pile for a souvenir photo. Naume expressed the inten­tion to organise such a clean-up campaign regu­larly and for the whole village commu­nity — the first trial run was defi­nitely promising!

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