{"id":151454,"date":"2025-09-12T12:34:14","date_gmt":"2025-09-12T12:34:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/151454\/"},"modified":"2025-09-12T12:34:14","modified_gmt":"2025-09-12T12:34:14","slug":"i-feel-irritated-looking-at-this-pile-of-rubbish","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/151454\/","title":{"rendered":"‘I feel irritated looking at this pile of rubbish’"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u2018Here\u2019s a plastic bottle and here\u2019s a Finnish sour cream package,\u2019 says Kirkenes resident Gunnar Reinholdtsen, rummaging through a bag of rubbish he has just collected from the shore of the fjord in the northern town of Kirkenes.\u00a0<\/p>\n

On Tuesday evening, Gunnar and three other local residents decided to clean the area of around 200 square metres of the shores of the local fjord.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\n Plastic never fully disappears. Instead, it breaks down into tiny pieces over hundreds or even thousands of years.
\n Photo: Elizaveta Vereykina\n <\/p>\n

\u201cPlastic breaks down into microplastics. All of this ends up in our oceans and seas, polluting the environment\u201d, Anne Greve, who joined Gunnar on that day said. – \u201cSome of the bottles we find here are 30 years old. Also, seagulls and other birds will be nesting here next spring. We want to clean up the area for them, too.\u201d<\/p>\n

Anne is part of the Norwegian Society for the Conservation of Nature (Naturvernforbundet<\/a>) – a Norwegian volunteer-based organisation.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\n Anne Greve picks up construction waste that someone dumped in the middle of the field.
\n Photo: Elizaveta Vereykina\n <\/p>\n

\u201cWe are an idealistic organisation. We want to protect the environment, so we clean up for free in our spare time,\u201d says Anne.<\/p>\n

\u201cSomeone has to do it,\u201d Gunnar adds.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\n Gunnar Reinholdtsen has been involved in clean-up activities for around 15 years.
\n Photo: Elizaveta Vereykina\n <\/p>\n

This organisation has been cleaning up litter in Norway for 50 years.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\n The volunteers with 5-year-old Mio in charge were cleaning up the area so that local birds could safely nest there.
\n Photo: Elizaveta Vereykina\n <\/p>\n

However, as the volunteers highlight, dealing with plastic waste is the challenge of modern times.<\/p>\n

Every day, the equivalent of 2,000 garbage trucks full of plastic are dumped into the world’s oceans, rivers, and lakes\u201d, the UN Environment Program states<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cPlastic pollution can alter habitats and natural processes, reducing ecosystems\u2019 ability to adapt to climate change, directly affecting millions of people\u2019s livelihoods, food production capabilities, and social well-being.\u201d<\/p>\n

Per Erik Motr\u00f8en and his five-year-old son, Mio, emerge from the bushes. They have just picked up some fluorescent plastic sticks, which are widely used in Norway to mark the roads during the polar night and harsh Arctic blizzards.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\n Per Erik Motr\u00f8en is concerned that such plastic sticks are scattered all over the town
\n Photo: Elizaveta Vereykina\n <\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of these sticks inevitably end up scattered around in nature here. There are a lot of them in this fjord. It’s a big problem,\u201d Per says. \u201cBefore, the sticks used to be made of bamboo. These plastic ones break down into microplastics and end up in the ocean. It would be great if they could be made of organic materials again.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite having a well-developed plastic recycling system in place for decades in Norway, it is hard to tackle the issue if other countries lag behind.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\n It took volunteers 1 hour to clean the shore area
\n Photo: Elizaveta Vereykina\n <\/p>\n

The United Nations Development Programme reports<\/a> that most of plastic waste in the world still ends up in landfills today.<\/p>\n

Plastic production \u2013 which industry analysts forecast to double by 2040 \u2013 will be the biggest growth market for oil demand over the next decade, Reuters highlights<\/a>. And oil demand means a contribution to greenhouse gases, which accelerate\u00a0climate change<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

A few metres further along the coast, the volunteers stumble upon a large pile of construction waste with several plastic buckets of plaster and paint, and rubber gloves. All of this is piled on top of a concrete patch.<\/p>\n

Gunnar: “I think it was left here by someone who works or lives nearby.”<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\n Construction waste dumped in Kirkenes
\n Photo: Elizaveta Vereykina\n <\/p>\n

\u201cI feel irritated looking at this pile,\u201d Anne exclaims.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s completely unnecessary to do this. The problem is that when people see garbage scattered around, they think, ‘Oh, I can easily throw more things here as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

Anne says this happens because people often don\u2019t realise the harm that such waste causes to the environment. She believes that teaching children to care for nature could help raise awareness.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\n Per Erik Motr\u00f8en teaches his son Mio to take care of nature
\n Photo: Elizaveta Vereykina\n <\/p>\n

It’s not just Norwegian waste that ends up in the local rivers and ocean.<\/p>\n

Kirkenes is located just a few minutes’ drive from the Russian border.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe often find beer bottles with Russian labels in the local waters,\u201d says Per. \u201cI think they come from Russian fishing vessels.\u201d<\/p>\n

The fishing industry has long been one of the major sources of plastic pollution in the ocean. Experts are actively working on developing fishing nets <\/a>made of organic materials.<\/p>\n

Norway’s farming industry also focuses on recycling as much as possible. In the course of a year, Norwegian farmers use over 20,000 tons of agricultural plastic, and in 2023, 93 percent of the plastic was recycled. While in 2022, only 77 percent of the plastic was recycled, NRK reported<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\n On that day, the volunteers gathered six bags of rubbish, which equals around 50 kg.
\n Photo: Elizaveta Vereykina\n <\/p>\n

Despite so many efforts, even in Norway, experts are sounding the alarm about the amount of plastic being thrown away in nature, whether by ordinary people or industries.<\/p>\n

For example, last year, a creek near Kirkenes was ranked<\/a> as the second most polluted in Norway.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Anne says that plastic waste is a global problem that must be tackled through international cooperation.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery small thing you do locally has a global effect,\u201d she emphasized.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u2018Here\u2019s a plastic bottle and here\u2019s a Finnish sour cream package,\u2019 says Kirkenes resident Gunnar Reinholdtsen, rummaging through…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":151455,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[192,79],"class_list":{"0":"post-151454","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-environment","9":"tag-science"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151454","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=151454"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151454\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/151455"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=151454"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=151454"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=151454"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}