We present to you the heroes of “Leaf by Leaf” – the campaign that has been saving trees by recycling paper for 25 years. Over 300 educational institutions, companies, and citizens have helped us save more than 21,000 trees during this period. Without their efforts, a large forest would have already been cut down for the needs of the paper industry.
“I collect different types of waste – paper, bottle caps, cans… I don’t throw them away in a regular trash can because it’s good to recycle them, to reuse them. Isn’t that a higher form of existence?!” reflects Georgi Prokopiev, our newest participant in the “Leaf by Leaf” campaign. We begin the conversation with a statement from him: “I’m not looking for publicity—this is something I do in my daily life, like many other people.”
He discovered the “Leaf by Leaf” campaign of the Public Center for Environment and Sustainable Development by accident. “I typed ‘environmental protection in Varna’ into the Internet and came across your website. On the page, you had a photo of separate paper collection. Since I already have 7-8 bags of waste paper in my garage, I decided to get in touch. On top of that, you are my neighbors. So everything became very easy,” says the young man from Varna.
In addition to paper, Georgi separates bottle caps, various types of plastic, plastic bags, and even used cooking oil from the general waste, which he hands over to a specialized company. Everything else is simply thrown away in the appropriate bins. He admits that he does not know what happens to the waste after that. “But as a citizen, I think it’s right to throw it away in the right place. Nature will be cleaner, less energy will be used for new products. There won’t be this consumerist attitude – you buy, you throw away, you buy, you throw away… and so on and so forth.”
