ΜΑRCH 2019
The inauguration of the first Recycling & Environmental Education Park in Northern Greece, created by the National Collective System REWARDING RECYCLING in collaboration with the Archdiocese of Athens charity Apostoli and the Municipality of Langada, was a great success. The work of the park will achieve many important environmental and social objectives that concern all citizens, since it will be visited by schoolchildren, teachers and young people, not to mention parents, from all the municipalities of Northern Greece.
“I am particularly happy to be here today at the Recycling and Environmental Education Park of Langada, a new initiative for our country that sets an example of how to teach young people about environmental protection and recycling. The most hopeful thing is that I see so many children here today who are enthusiastically embracing the idea of recycling. The Holy Archdiocese of Athens, through its charity Apostoli, has begun an excellent partnership with the National Agency REWARDING RECYCLING, while through the new actions that we will immediately be launching together, we will try to provide even more help for people in need, as the money raised from recycling is used to support our charity work.”
“Following two years of enormous success since the first Recycling and Environmental Education Park in Greece – but also in Europe – started operating in Agioi Anargyroi, Attica, we are now proceeding with the rapid roll-out of this important initiative, which is a milestone in the recycling process in this country. It is a project that implements the priorities of the country's National Waste Management Plan. It is also a particular honour for us that under the auspices of His Eminence the Archbishop of Athens and All Greece, Ieronymos, and working closely with the charity Apostoli, we are implementing the Integrated Programme of Actions entitled Mission: Man and the Environment.”
“At the same time as we are inaugurating the Recycling and Environmental Education Park, we are establishing a new relationship between children, primarily (but all our fellow citizens in general), and the rewarding practice of recycling, fostering respect for the environment. This exemplary facility will be an ideal destination for teachers and pupils, for parents and children, with the aim of educating them about the environment and strengthening their ecological consciousness. At the same time, it will be an alternative leisure destination that is open to all. I am proud that our municipality is the first in Greece to utilise a former camp in such a short space of time for the benefit of the local community. It is a project that is more than local, with the potential for further cultural uses, and will be an attraction for every family in the prefecture of Thessaloniki and beyond.”
“Today, with Recycling and Environmental Education Parks being created and expanded in our country by the National Collective System REWARDING RECYCLING, I feel truly proud to be Greek. It is very pleasing that the parks initiative is a positive European-wide first for Greece, as this best practice has not yet been extended to other European countries. I am glad that the Recycling Park applies both the legal obligation of source segregation with four separate streams of packaging materials, as well as the recommendation of the European Commission to use financial instruments to promote recycling. It is a fact that Greece lags behind in terms of quantitative recycling targets; infrastructure such as Recycling Parks certainly helps raise awareness and educate citizens, while collecting significant quantities of packaging materials.”
“This is a very important day for Langada, Thessaloniki and all Macedonia. Not only because we are inaugurating a Recycling and Environmental Education Park today, with its particular importance in raising awareness of environmental protection, but also because local communities are forging ahead, sending the message to all citizens, visitors and organisations that recycling must finally go to the top of everyone’s agenda.”