Trash piles reportedly overflowing in Glasgow as climate summit continues

World leaders have come together at the United Nations Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26) in Glasgow, Scotland. While the leaders address climate change solutions and initiatives, the New York Times reported overflowing dumpsters and trash cans. 

“Outside the gleaming center of Scotland’s largest city, dumpsters and trash cans are overflowing,” the Times noted. “The city’s rat population has surged, with four garbage workers hospitalized because of attacks over the past five months. And litter is strewn across streets.”

Trash is being discarded underneath the M8 motorway along with other places in the city, much of which includes construction waste, bathtubs, and other household garbage, which the Times described as “…the reality of today’s throwaway society.”

The situation has been made worse by an eight-day strike by the city’s trash collectors that concluded on Monday. Low pay, disrespectful treatment from management, and poor working conditions drove the strike.

A top official for the GMB Scotland trade union that represents around 1,000 trash collectors in the city named Chris Mitchell says the government has “abandoned low paid workers who have saved this nation” through the ongoing pandemic as COVID-19 infections have lowered.

Glasgow was chosen to host COP26 due to its “commitment to sustainability,” according to the Glasgow City Council’s website, noting that the town was recently “awarded the status of Global Green City” having “an ambitious target of achieving carbon neutrality by 2030.”

Over the course of the conference, protesters and youth organizers gathered in the streets for many demonstrations expressing frustration with the world leaders.

Greta Thunberg, 18-year-old Swedish climate activist, led a protest near the summit, calling the meeting “a PR event” and “two-week long celebration of business as usual and blah blah blah.” She added, “It is not a secret that COP26 is a failure. It should be obvious that we cannot solve the crisi with the same methods that got us into it in the first place.”

ARTICLE: ELIZABETH HERTZBERG

MANAGING EDITOR: CARSON CHOATE

PHOTO CREDITS: YAHOO NEWS

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