Most people who collect bottles and cans for the deposit do it for a bit of extra pocket money. Totally understand! Huge kudos to everyone who also helps make streets, parks and verges a bit cleaner in the process. But how special is it when you spend your free time clearing up cans, bottles and other litter while the money is actually beside the point? Annelies from De Groene Witte does just that. She can't stand litter and instead of complaining about it, she does something about it. Saskia walked with her through Utrecht for a morning and discovered how much difference one person can make with a litter picker, a bin bag and a bit of perseverance.
Litter picking along the Utrecht canal
We are walking along the Utrecht canal when Annelies suddenly thrusts her litter picker towards the bushes. ‘Look, there's some more.’ Within a few minutes, several cans, plastic bottles, empty crisp packets and other plastic rubbish disappear into the bin bags we have brought with us: one for deposit items and one for litter. Since we are walking there anyway, we prefer to pick everything up. ‘Except cigarette butts,’ says Annelies with a laugh. ‘There really is no end to them.’ And she is right. As soon as you start paying attention to them, you see them lying everywhere. Around benches, next to bins and right in the middle of the street. The same goes for finished cans, packaging and snack waste, for that matter. The city looks pretty clean, until you walk around with a litter picker.
Annelies is founder of The Green White. Her mission? Making Utrecht cleaner and getting as many people as possible enthusiastic about litter-picking. Because according to her, that sense of embarrassment simply has to go. And precisely by doing it together, she notices that barrier quickly disappears.
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Deposits and litter picking for nature
Along the way, Annelies tells the story of how De Groene Witte first began. About seven years ago, she was visiting her aunt and uncle on Terschelling when a huge number of containers fell off a container ship into the sea. The contents washed ashore on the beach. ‘Plastic, packaging and rubbish were lying everywhere. That image really stuck with her,’ she says. Once back in Utrecht, she decided she wanted to do something closer to home as well. Not just being annoyed by litter, but simply starting. With a litter picker, a bin bag and an Instagram account on which she shares her tidying sessions.
She now regularly organises litter-picking events in Utrecht. Just accessible, an hour's walk while picking up litter along the way. Sometimes they start with coffee, after which they head into the city together. ‘On your own, it still feels a bit awkward sometimes,’ she admits. ‘People used to ask whether I was doing community service.’ That makes her laugh out loud. Nowadays, she mostly gets positive reactions. Thumbs-up from passers-by, compliments and regularly people saying that they actually want to do it more often themselves. And according to her, picking it up together helps enormously. ‘As soon as you're with a small group, that embarrassment disappears immediately. Then it actually becomes really sociable.’
A walk through the Singelpark in Utrecht soon yields a hefty haul of deposit bottles.
Collecting bottle deposits: a mixed feeling
By the end of the morning, we've gathered a tidy haul of deposit bottles. Most of it we find around benches, in the grass where people have been having picnics, and even floating in the water. Enough for coffee and a slice of cake, we joke. But honestly, the money actually feels completely unimportant. What really sticks with you is that strange, conflicting feeling while you're picking it up. On the one hand, it makes you quite sad to see how much rubbish apparently ends up on the streets and in the greenery. As soon as you start paying attention to it, you see it everywhere. But at the same time, it also gives a lot of satisfaction to give something back. To leave a place literally cleaner than you found it. And perhaps best of all: the reactions of other people. Thumbs up from passers-by, a smile, someone shouting ‘well done!’. It takes away a bit of that awkwardness you might feel beforehand when walking through the city with a litter picker.
Perhaps that is precisely why people like Annelies keep doing this. Not because you get rich from deposit money, but because it feels good to do something small that has an immediate, visible result. A litter picker, a rubbish bag and an hour’s walk. Sometimes, that is really all it needs to be.
Would you like to go out with Annelies sometime? Through De Groene Witte, she regularly organises litter-picking events in Utrecht where everyone is welcome. If you join her, please give her my best!
You might also find this interesting
- Also see: The recycling of a deposit can: here is how it works!
- Also see: The recycling of a deposit bottle: that's how it works!
- Also see: A look into our sewers!
Photo credits: thegreenlist.nl.
