In the midst of the Sunday morning joggers, they do not go unnoticed with their rolls of trash bags, their gloves, and their echoing laughter. While the World clean up day will encourage citizens to work to clean up the planet at least once, this Saturday, it has been a year since Cécile and her gang mobilized in Nantes. Their collective, called
Clean walk Naoned, even collected more than 700 garbage bags filled with all kinds of waste. “That is more than 3,000 kg which will not end up in the Loire or the Erdre, calculates Cécile, Pumpkin by his artist name, at the origin of the initiative. We also recovered several tons of glass… You’ll see, it’s amazing what we find. “
Last Sunday, for this “return of filth”, it is in front of the skatepark and the tavern in Vincent-Gâche, one of the “hot spots”, that this giant garbage hunt begins, around 10 am. We bend down or we use pliers, we rummage a little and… bingo! In addition to the traditional food packaging, beer bottles, cigarette ends or ecocups, several nitrous oxide cartridges were quickly discovered in the brush along the Loire. But it is not uncommon to find more unusual objects. “We have already had a car battery, porn DVDs, dead animals, a safe… shouts one of the twenty volunteers of the day, half amused, half disgusted. We also find money sometimes, it allows you to pay for pizzas! “
“A concrete and super exhilarating action”
Something to motivate yourself for these sessions, of about three hours and organized twice a month on six different circuits, which could quickly become demoralizing despite the good humor that reigns there: how not to give up when the place that comes from being cleaned is dirty again a few hours later? “In fact, it’s super paradoxical, admits Edouard, who has kept the 300 or so lighters already collected in a year. It may seem endless but at the same time, it is concrete and super exhilarating action. When I pick up a cigarette butt, I tell myself that it is one less that will pollute the waters. It also gives me hope to see other people get up early to participate. There are people from all walks of life [130 bénévoles au total], sometimes children with their parents. “
Cécile, who started all alone in her neighborhood (south station) during confinement, speaks, for her part, “of a somewhat selfish act so as not to have the complete impression that the boat is sinking”. The young woman, who denounces a system of collecting garbage sometimes “poorly thought out”, especially hopes that little by little, awareness of respect for the environment in the broad sense will gain ground. ” In Japan, the children help to clean their class, she illustrates. With us, it’s a guy who comes to clean up once everyone is gone! The problem is that from childhood, we get used to someone coming to pick up behind us… ”
Saturday morning, several dozen people are expected for a “special butt” operation. It will take place in the Saint-Mihiel district, in Nantes.