A waste hunter in Grenoble

Shocked to see her city transformed into a giant dump over the years, Stefanie Bonnet had the idea one day of organizing a waste collection in the Grenoble conurbation. A collection that quickly became weekly. It all started with an observation I knew my city much cleaner and I’m quite shocked to see a general degradation that is growing. I believe there is an urgent need to act “. At first, she started by walking the streets of the metropolis alone. A waste hunt from which she unfortunately never returned empty-handed. Cigarette butts, bottles and other cans fill its garbage bags at each collection. “ Most of the time, we find a lot of plastic waste, we also have a lot of cardboard, we also find dozens of whipped cream bombs enumerates this Grenoble resident, committed to the protection of the environment. A natural gesture that she has been doing for 10 years now. A citizen collection that she now leads, accompanied by a dozen volunteers who have registered on the platform “Clean Walk” where waste collection in France is listed.

Cleanwalk in Paris with @shaltaa1 – 26.09.2020

2 hours – 16 people – 6,000 cigarette butts

A warm-up before a cleanwalk with hundreds of people in 2021! pic.twitter.com/y5cswCNbo3

— Cleanwalk.org (@Cleanwalk_org) September 28, 2020

The participants are athletes like Julie, a fan of jogging. “ I often run marathons. When I train, I’m often compelled to avoid the rubbish that litters the road.”

There are also simple citizens, like André who considers that he is only doing his duty. We feel like we’re useful, we’re not going to make people feel guilty, we come to clean up, I’m very happy to participate in this waste collection every month.”

A commitment that allows us to collect, on each outing, nearly 200 kilos of waste. Stéphanie is now appealing to local authorities to organize citizen collections.