If we look around, and I mean our closest surroundings, the streets we drive on, on the sidewalks we walk on, the highways and the regional roads we travel on, picnic spots, parks and rest areas, the mountains and the lakes have never been so polluted and drowning in garbage as much as they are now. Macedonia has never been so dirty. Tons of plastic around us, garbage scattered everywhere, dust, polluted air, polluted water, etc. This, unfortunately, is the sad picture of Macedonia which, after winter leaves the snow disappears and the mountains, it becomes more apparent and clearer. Simply, we are all drowning in the garbage around us. Skopje has never been dirtier, the larger cities throughout Macedonia were never so messy, through Vardar, which according to the Prespa Agreement we can only call it Vardar only to Gevgelija, tons of plastic flow directly into the Aegean Sea no matter what we call it. That’s the sad picture, VMRO-DPMNE Vice President Aleksandar Nikoloski writes in a column for Nezavisen Vesnik.

I cannot escape the impression that after the local elections in 2017, after which the SDSM and DUI personnel gained almost one hundred percent domination in the country, ecology has been reduced to zero, and the country is still dirty. Well, I wonder do mayors even do their jobs? Do the municipal communal companies work? Is Macedonia-Road doing anything, or is it so incapable of cleaning the two highways that this country has? Do the competent institutions work, will they gather their strength to clean up Popova Shapka, Mavrovo, Pelister, Ponikva, Berovo, now that the snow has melted and the garbage has resurfaced. It is obvious that the total inability of the SDSM’s staff to take care of the country, to clean it up just a little bit so it could start looking like a normal country. There is no need to scientifically prove all of this that I’m writing, no need to collect statistics or data, all you have to do is turn around and see what the country looks like.

Here we have to take a good look at ourselves. And ask ourselves – Do we have life manners and the right kind of attitude to the public well-being? How is it possible that our homes are perfectly clean and tidy, and when we go out of our apartments and houses everything is so dirty. How is it possible that we inflict so much damage to the environment we live in and that we are not ready to devote a little of our time to clean it. Yes, it’s true, there are competent institutions in charge of this, and I have already criticized them in this column, but the fact is that we should take some responsibility ourselves.

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