# Church resposibilities



## jed1 (Sep 27, 2011)

I am a regular walker through the countryside, which takes me through various small villages and during my passage i have found an increasing amount of rubbish being discarded. The greek countryside and the villages are beautiful, why spoil it.
It may fall on the religious orders to do something about it. They are not required to pay any property tax or contribute to the economy and therefore they should feel obliged to offer some assistance in the maintenance and upkeep of their parishes. 
They could therefore offer to organise a national " keep the countryside tidy" campaign. Which i am am sure their parishioners would gladly take part in.
Or maybe just educate them into putting the rubbish in the bins.
Jed1


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## The Grocer (May 30, 2010)

Yes, one of my real hates is the rubbish people carelessly discard in Greece. It is all too common to see items thrown from car & truck windows and as you say some very beautiful countryside is spoilt by litter.
On top of that there is the "fly tipping" of rubble etc. I guess the only way to address this is in school at an early age. However I also recall the major push we had in the UK in the 70's when garages gave bags to car drivers for rubbish etc.

As for the church doing something, I would not hold out much hope......but I do like your idea of putting some responsibility on the parish priest for upkeep....


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## wka (Sep 18, 2009)

I've only been living in Greece a few years but I can't honestly say I've seen people actively littering. What I have seen is people throwing away lightweight items and they get blown right out of the bins. My husband (who is Greek) is one of those people who walks around the countryside picking up trash and items for recycling, so we can't paint everyone with the same brush (I, the American, approve of him doing this but I don't really do much to help, if I'm 100% honest). 

I don't know about your kids' schools, but at the schools here in Greece where my husband has taught, they do teach the kids not to litter and to conserve water. I'm very impressed with the level of water conservation in Greece compared to what I saw in the US, and I've seen the distaste/shock on Greeks' faces when they watch Americans use water - so it goes both ways. (And I don't need to say anything about Americans' use of gasoline or electricity with their clothes dryers and SUVs, do I?)

The church is completely useless, and this stupid "Oloi mazi mporoume" campaign on SKAI with the church collecting food at supermarkets gets me so mad. Instead of collecting food from struggling Greek housewives, why doesn't the church sell six or seven gold cups and buy 12 times as much through wholesale sources?


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## Crawford (Jan 23, 2011)

There was a posting on one of the expat forums, asking what was the worst aspect of living in Greece?

The most popular answer was the amount of trash, litter and rubbish to be found in both towns and country. 

I myself have travelled to many Greek Islands and my family and I now have a phrase "Look at the view but don't look down" - because invariably if you look down the slope, over the wall or behind the building you will find trash of every kind.

Greece has the same problem as Britain- fly tipping. Where the village/town folk, local contractors, anyone getting rid of household objects/furniture, old beds etc just take it outside the town and dump it on side of the road ...... and lets not get started on the amount of plastic bottles washing up on the beaches etc.

Sorry, but it appears the majority of Greeks have no pride at all in their environment.


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