MISSION 'CLEAN FENCE', END OF YEAR 4

Or as I declared four years ago: a grandmother’s war against waste and garbage along the kibbutz fence.

Better place – when clean

I walk in the mornings, four days a week, but we were one month in Australia, so, I estimate in the last year I walked about 170 days, that is at least 170 bags of garbage, waste, trash, a lot of plastics, one-time use cups, plates, plastic bottles and other stuff.

I believe close to 90% of what I pick up is plastics. I have never been so fortunate as to walk of the whole 3 km along the fence without seeing any piece of garbage. So, the kibbutz mismanagement of waste and garbage is still strong and on-going. I wonder why that is??

A little wind and the fence is covered in trash

Mismanagement

In the last year I have learned a new word: PLOGGING, it is Swedish from ‘jogga’ = to jog and ‘plocka up’ = picking up; so, it means to jog and to pick up litter and trash; it originated in Stockholm in 2016. On their website it says: Plogging is a change of attitude and ploggers are proud garbage collectors who do something for our environment and health, before it is too late. Littering is a sign of a dysfunctional society without respect for each other and earth. We want to change the setting and get everyone to become "Proud litter pickers".

Plogging

That is probably too ambitious, I find it unlikely that that you can change people’s behavior, you can only hope to change your own: not to use plastic bags or one-time use utensils; if you see trash then pick it up, because nobody else will. I do not run or jog, but I walk as fast as the trash allows me to; so, I do a kind of plogging and participate in the Great Global Cleanup of Earth Day. However, that is a never-ending endeavor, the more I remove, the more there will be tomorrow. My Dear says that perhaps I am more aware of the litter and therefore see it everywhere; hmm, difficult to say, but litter is everywhere on the kibbutz.

WHY?

This last year has seen some change, because more people on the kibbutz have become involved in cleaning the waste and trash; Sima’le has already for some years proven reliable in the cleaning efforts: Sima’le: you do not help me personally, you help us, the whole community! Also, my daughter and other families with small children have started ‘Mission Clean kibbutz”; they have a very clever slogan: kibbutznaki; it is a play of words or rather letters in Hebrew: a member of the kibbutz is kibbutznik; naki in Hebrew is clean – so, that became: kibbutznaki – clean kibbutz! Nice, I like it.

Kibbutznaki

As every year April 22 is Earth Day, this year the theme is: Our Power, Our Planet. Last year’s theme was ‘Plastic versus planet’; the last year have revealed a number of scientific publications on the threat to human health due to exposure to degrading plastics. An article in Nature (Februar 2025) showed that concentrations of environmental microplastics and nano-plastics (MNPs) polyethylene had increased significantly between 2016 and 2024 in human kidney, liver and brain.

An Italian article has come up with a name for environmental plastic contamination: PLASTAMINATION (A. Santoro et al, Feb 2025); describing how non- degradable plastics affect particular sensitive human tissues as brain and reproductive organs by inducing oxidative stress, chronic inflammation, energy metabolism disorders, mitochondrial dysfunction and cytotoxicity. The size of microplastics: 1-1000 mcg and nano-plastics are 1-1000nm and cannot be seen by the naked eye. Microplastics has been detected in human organs systems like cardiovascular, digestive, endocrine, integumentary, lymphatic, respiratory, reproductive and urinary; and also found in breastmilk, meconium, semen, stool, sputum and urine; that is everywhere. The research on the effect of plastics on human body are in diapers, the next decade will most likely enlighten and develop a better understanding how micro-and nano-plastics influence our body and health. I wonder if the current political atmosphere around the world will allow to develop ways to resolve this problem. The particles enter our body by way of intake of polluted food and drink as well as by inhaling contaminated air. My advice at the moment is to reduce as much as possible the use of plastics. I truly believe that in the next decade or so, it will become clear that exposure to MNPs will prove just as harmful to the human body as smoking, especially for growing and developing children.

This brings me wonder who and why it was decided to spread a cover of wooden pieces polluted with a lot of platsics next to the kinder-garden; every day for the last 7 weeks I have removed 40-50 plastic items from there, they move to the surface; the toddlers should not be exposed for 7-9 hours every day to the degradation of these plastic items. Such a cover has also been spread next to the shop and near the bus-stop, but there, people do not spend a lot of time, like sleeping and playing as in the children do in the kinder garden. This wooden cover polluted with plastic was probably taken from the vast amounts trash left on the field behind the cowshed and factory; another shameful garbage spot in the kibbutz.

The kids in the kindergarten are exposed to degrading plastics – why? The plastic items slowly work their way to the surface where I will grab and remove it, it should have been placed here in the first place.

A pile of wood polluted by plastics = PLASTAMINATION - an eyesore polluted area.

In the past there were people working in the gardens who were helpful in clearing out the larger  garbage parts that I cannot put into my bag, so I have had piles of garbage around the kibbutz; I even experienced how an evil person coming down from the swimming pool, stopped his car and spread out my perfectly safe garbage pile, shame on him. My Dear helped me one day to remove all the piles of garbage.

Thank you, My Dear!

It is about how we can help each other and not to feel drowning in garbage and trash in our immediate surroundings.

SO, I feel I’m still going strong and can contribute to a better kibbutz; my hope is that it will serve a better future for my grandchildren some of whom are now living on the kibbutz.

Spring time is a very nice season: to see the colorful flowers and green trees, and the birds showing themselves around us. I wonder if they (birds and plants) can also feel that I have removed considerable amounts of plastic, garbage and trash? What do you think?

What do you do to easy the amount of plastic trash?

colorful - yellow: the urgent need to return all the hostages from the terrorists, NOW