Plastic bottles choke Budapest parks, park budgets

Keeping Budapest's green areas green is proving increasingly difficult, due to the large volume of plastic bottles and other waste discarded by residents, reports daily Népszabadság.

Every week, upwards of 80,000 plastic bottles are collected from the city's main green areas by employees of park maintenance company Főkert. As a result, one third of the company's budget goes for trash removal, rather than caring for plants and other work needed to keep the city's open spaces attractive.

In City Park, or Városliget, 14,000 plastic bottles are collected every week, and a slightly smaller number picked up on Margit Island. Every summer, it takes 100 employees and almost Ft 500 million (roughly €2 million) to keep these areas looking civilized, said László Kocsis, general manager of Főkert Rt.

The company has floated several proposals to ease this burden, but to date none has been realized. One plan involved mandating sellers of drinks in parks to pay to the company for picking up the bottles left behind by customers, while another was to prohibit selling sodas in non-returnable bottles.

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