Cleaning up city parks at weekends costs tens of thousands of euros every year
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The parks in all city centres are like garbage dumps after Friday and Saturday nights. The cities pay thousands of euros to make the parks clean enough for citizens to walk in at weekends. The situation is said to have become worse over the last five years.
In Tampere, three sports clubs take care of cleaning up at weekends. The city pays a total of just EUR 9,000 for all 15 weekends of the summer, as the work is performed by voluntary labour. The city provides gloves, sacks, and litter tongs as well as giving each sports club a lump sum of money for their efforts.
Saturday’s tidying up was performed by female gymnasts, while on Sunday morning, the footballers of Hervanta Sporting Team were in charge. This voluntary work forms an important source of income for the team.
Volunteers should wear gloves when handling litter, as it may contain dangerous items including broken glass or syringes.
In Helsinki, the cost of cleaning up litter from the parks in the city centre is EUR 53,000 for the whole summer. In Turku it costs EUR 62,000, but the amount of money is supposed to cover even the clean-up patrols of youngsters that circle around the city the whole day during weekends, as this is Turku’s jubilee year.
The cost of cleaning up litter puts a strain on the city’s ability to supply other services - and the bill is ultimately paid by the citizens themselves. Hence the city of Helsinki is asking its residents to help with the problem, and started handing out litter tongs to them last week.
Helsingin Sanomat
