EVENT CLEAN-UPS


DANCING IN THE STREETS


As the European Championships came to a close, Tomorrow’s Cleaning Editor Matt Waring looks at what impact the large number of incoming supporters had on the French cities, and their street cleaning teams.


This summer, one of the biggest events of the football calendar took place as the European Championships rolled into France.


The month-long tournament, held every four years, is second only to the World Cup in terms of international tournaments, and is a chance for some of the world’s best players to perform on the largest stage.


It also means that the host nation becomes inundated with huge numbers of travelling fans, from all across Europe, eager to see their team in with a chance of taking home the trophy (unless, of course, they’re English). Before the tournament began, it was estimated that more than 1.5 million football fans would be making their way to France, and while many of these travelling supporters had tickets to see their country play, those that didn’t were still able to watch the matches on big screens in each city’s designated ‘Fan Zone’.


These areas can host a massive amount of supporters, with Paris’ impressive zone, at the foot of the Eiffel Tower, boasting a capacity of around 90,000. But while such a large-scale influx of tourists can provide a significant boost to the country’s economy (the tournament was estimated to generate around €1.27billion), it also adds a great deal strain on each city’s resources, and can cause a lot of excess waste.


Indeed, after each game throughout the competition, the streets of French cities were left strewn with litter, as fans leave their empty beer bottles, food packaging and general waste behind them as they make their way back to their hotels. One Parisian resident has shared some


www.tomorrowscleaning.com


photographs of ‘the morning after the night before’, showing just some of the rubbish that is left strewn across the streets after each game.


However, while the images show a large amount of waste on the sides of the road, Ekow Acquah, 27, a teacher who has lived in Paris for five years, did say that the local authorities were quick to clean up the rubbish. He said: “After each game, teams of workers from the local authority were out early in the morning the day after to make sure that the locals don’t complain. It was never left for long.


“The photos that I took were just after 7am, and by 1pm it was all cleaned up, only for the next set of fans to mess it up again.”


There are obviously exceptions to every rule though, as while many fans were guilty of leaving French streets covered in their litter, travelling supporters from the Republic of Ireland made a name for themselves for doing the exact opposite. Video footage did the rounds online, showing a large number of Irish fans making a special effort to gather up their spent beer bottles to dispose of properly, all the while singing ‘clean up for the boys in green’.


It was a silver lining amid some nasty scenes of violence among fans of other nations, but it is something of a sad indictment that such behaviour is seen as a rare act of kindness, when it’s the kind of considerate deed that you’d hope would be commonplace.


Instead it is an act that, while appreciated – Irish fans received special praise from the Mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, for their exemplary behaviour throughout the tournament – in the end made very little impact, as


“After each game throughout the competition, the streets of French cities were left strewn with litter, as fans leave their empty beer


bottles, food packaging and general waste behind them.”


Ekow explained: “Some fans made an effort to clear up after themselves, but there were so many fans that in some places it made very little difference. So then it comes down to the local authorities to sort everything out.”


Before a ball had even been kicked, the city of Paris had issues with rubbish on the streets, thanks to 12 days of strike action from unions opposed to French President Francois Hollande’s plans to make hiring and firing across all sectors easier, resulting in huge piles of uncollected rubbish.


Luckily for the city, the visitors, and the tournament’s organisers UEFA, dozens of additional garbage trucks were brought in to clear the accumulated rubbish on the eve of France’s opening game against Romania.


Those additional trucks may have needed to be kept on until after the final, which saw the French suffer heartbreak as Portugal won the game 1-0, thanks to an extra-time winner from substitute striker, Éder.


Tomorrow’s Cleaning August 2016 | 53


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64  |  Page 65  |  Page 66  |  Page 67  |  Page 68  |  Page 69  |  Page 70  |  Page 71  |  Page 72  |  Page 73  |  Page 74  |  Page 75  |  Page 76