Belgian Eco-friendliness

In Belgium people care about their environment more than we in Finland. I have noticed that streets are cleaner and there aren’t trashes. But sometimes you can see a lot of waste in forests, people’s old stuff that they don’t need anymore. I heard from my host dad that you can get a fine if you litter.

Now because it’s autumn and trees drop their leaves, somebody always cleans the streets after that. I went to an outlet village here in Belgium and the place was so clean that I have never seen anything like that before. I didn’t even see one butt of a cigarette.

My host family recycles almost everything, empty bottles, paper, organic waste etc. And they have got two chickens for accessory food. At school Belgians use a lot of paper and it’s not so ecological. We have only two books and everything else is in paper copies. But in school corridors there are bins for plastic bottles and paper.

Tiina Välimaa (a Finnish exchange student in Liége, Belgium)