Increased by 50% was the volume of garbage that accumulated in the green and blue garbage bins of the historical shopping center of Thessaloniki, due to the participation of thousands of carnival-goers in the open-air parties and barbecues to celebrate Tsiknopebis.

Its crews cleanliness of the municipality of Thessaloniki they took to the streets late last night, while the operation to “pull together” the city from the festivities will continue in the following hours. “There were customers until 8 in the morning in shops in Ladadika and they continued to have fun. The presence of the people was reminiscent of an image similar to the one we recorded on New Year’s Eve. And residents and visitors did not gather only in the center, but in all municipal communities. In Eptapyrgio, Toumba and Charilaou, everywhere is a party,” Kostas Iakovou, the Deputy Mayor for Cleanliness and Recycling of the Municipality of Thessaloniki, told the radio station of APE – MEP “Agency 104.9Fm”.

According to the deputy mayor, only from the historical center of Thessaloniki, and in particular from Vasileos Heraklion, Ermou, Ladadika and the surrounding streets, there was garbage increased by 50 tons. In total, 150 tons of garbage were collected from this area.

Meeting to deal with “piracy” in the blue bins

Mr. Iakovou, during the interview, also referred to the problem of “piracy” from the blue bins, saying that an attempt will be made to put a “brake” on the theft of recyclable materials by the “gyrologists”, who use improvised carts to steal whatever they consider it valuable and leave the rest of the trash scattered on the sidewalks.

As he said, to meeting which took place, yesterday, in the presence of officials from the Deputy Mayor of Cleanliness and Recycling and the Municipal Police of the Municipality of Thessaloniki with the new Director of Traffic, Paraskevi Papageorgopoulou, it was decided to carry out additional checks and to have a better coordination of forces. A similar meeting will follow with the General Police Director of Thessaloniki, Christos Bouloumbassi.

We laid the groundwork for the cooperation of all the managements of the municipality of Thessaloniki with ELAS so that more regular checks are carried out and in a stricter context. The issue that we have pointed out as the responsible deputy mayor was put on the meeting table: courts have been held, after our own lawsuits, where everyone was acquitted for thefts of insignificant value”, said Mr. Iakovou characteristically.