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One day, a very brave woman got on the case of a young man for throwing his empty cigarette pack in the park. She almost got beat up. I was cowardly watching, deciding it was best not to intervene, fearing for my own safety. While I admire the woman for her courage and conviction, a conviction which I share, I do believe it was not her duty to teach the young man a lesson. It is the duty of the civil society. Unless a national anti littering campaign is made, single acts of bravery like this one will only put people in danger without making a major and lasting change.

I think people in our country, of all ages, lack the proper education when it comes to keeping our streets clean. No one at home or at school, on TV or in the media in general tells us it’s not OK to drop our junk on the streets. No one gets fined for littering. You can’t expect people to change their habits without a sustained public information campaign, education and ruthless enforcement of the law (fines).

Our garbage has changed considerably over the years. Before 1989, the garbage was mostly organic, especially in the country side. People would throw it out and it would melt away at the first rain. Now however, with the invasion of the supermarket products, we have plastic bottles, plastic bags, and various types of packaging. But, even if the nature of the garbage has changed, people continue to treat it the same way as before: throwing it away. Unfortunately, this time it doesn’t melt with the first rain. It clogs our fields, rivers and road sides.

Another cause of our littering problem is how uninterested people are in public property. They only see and care about their own little backyard. I think most Romanian women, myself included, are cleaning freaks. Why are we so obsessed that everything is ship shape at home, but we don’t teach our children to keep the streets clean? How come dirt bothers us at home, but the moment we step outside, we don’t see it anymore? I think it is because communism destroyed our sense of property and enabled us to ignore anything that we didn’t own.

We need a public figure to be the driving force behind a national anti littering campaign. And so I wonder, what have our First Ladies, if I can call them that, been doing all these years? Why are they all hiding behind their husbands, doing apparently nothing, except showing up at public events? I think this type of campaign would fit perfectly with a First Lady’s duties and it would be a way to bring indirect votes for her husband. Does anyone have the number of Elena Băsescu? I would like to give her a call.