While driving to an appointment today, I was listening to a radio talk show discussing Turkey’s economy. It was pointed out that now more Turks are wealthy than ever before. In fact, there are some who are very wealthy. Ironically, while listening to this program I saw gypsies sorting through the garbage on the streets. Keeping the streets clean in a mega-city like İstanbul is not easy! Often visitors comment on the city’s scavengers and the trash that piles up in the evening.
One of my British friends’ mother, who lived through World War II, never throws anything away. She’s very similar to my American grandparents, who never stopped living in the Depression-era mindset. They recycled bottles and cans, had huge compost heaps for using in their acres of garden and burned paper. I imagine it would be recycled these days. They influenced me so much that I find myself reusing my Ziploc bags by washing and drying them.
You may know people who were even more frugal. Perhaps they tied used string into a ball and reused it or never threw away aluminum foil. If you want to know more about living frugal, learn some dollar-stretching tips or live more green and simple, visit www.wisebread.com/forums.
Every day in İstanbul official “street-cleaners” do their jobs, but during the day more trash accumulates. Toward late afternoon, gypsies who lug behind themselves huge trolleys with burlap sacks attached to them tear open the trash bags that have been dumped on the sidewalk, leaving garbage everywhere. In the summer it festers and smells. By evening a number of different individuals will have sifted through it.
One visitor wrote asking the following question:
“Dear Charlotte: I lived in Merter in 2006 and was appalled by the amount of garbage on the street. The gypsies would drag their trolleys around Merter (and other parts of İstanbul, mind you), tear open the trash bags that had been dumped on the sidewalk [and] sort through it for what they could recycle, leaving the rest on the street. What I have a problem with is that supposedly Turkey is considered a part of Europe. So I must ask this: What other nation in Europe has trash strewn on every walking corner of town by gypsy recyclers? What European city does not provide garbage bins for trash and have designated recycling points?” From Fredrich (Germany)
Dear Fredrich:
The municipality may provide garbage bins in some places, but usually in more respectable areas every building purchases their own garbage bin, writes their building address on it and leaves it at the edge of the property by the street. It is true that in more commercial areas tenants usually put trash on the street to be collected. Your question makes a good point! Great effort is underway to help people learn to recycle and containers are being placed around neighborhoods for the residents. Steps are being taken in the right direction.
Visitors to Turkey are often disturbed by the poverty here. It is different from poverty in America.
An American visitor shares: “I remember seeing only one beggar, a man in a wheelchair with mangled legs. It seems usually the poor were working at something, even if they only had a scale and charged people a few cents to weigh themselves. After the shops shut for the day, a horde of boys went up and down the streets picking through the garbage the merchants had thrown out. A typical picker would have a wheeled hand truck with four very large canvas bags on it and would specialize in a few types of recyclables. They collected cardboard, cans, plastic bottles and scraps of cloth. A few were looking for good stuff accidentally thrown out. Streets were left in an awful mess. Most garbage bags had been ripped open and their contents were picked through. I wonder if any [garbage collectors] have health problems.”
Dear American visitor: A study was conducted on the health problems of garbage collectors in İstanbul. It revealed that diseases from poisonous gases and micro-organisms in the air near garbage dumps may cause serious health problems such as respiratory disorders, gastroenteritis and dermatitis and more.
I guess cutting down on the amount of garbage begins with cutting out impetuous purchases.
“Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful.” -- William Morris
Benzer Haberler 
