Do you want to read the good news first or the bad news? The good news is that as of yesterday the rubbish accumulated in the streets over twelve days and twelve endless nights began to be collected again in Edinburgh. The bad ones are two. One, that there is so much, that the workers have already warned that they will not finish taking it away before the next work stoppage begins next week. The other is that in Glasgow, Aberdeen and the rest of Scotland the unions are holding their own, and the filth heaps continue to grow.
The landscape of Edinburgh, in the middle of the festival, are mountains of rubbish that compete in height with Everest, K2 and the other eight thousand of the Himalayas, litter bins and containers overflowing with rubbish, rats that roam freely and foxes that open the bags and look for delicacies among them. Authorities have warned of potential serious health problems due to decomposition and bacteria.
Not only has the image of the capital, one of the most beautiful cities in Europe under normal circumstances, been damaged, but also that of the Government led by the SNP (Scottish National Party), at a delicate moment in which it has asked the courts of law to determine whether or not it has the right to call a new independence referendum without the consent of London. Liz Truss, the very likely new British prime minister, has not only warned that she will outright refuse to allow it, but that her strategy towards Nicola Sturgeon is going to be to “ignore her as if she didn’t exist”.
The people of Edinburgh are very, very angry. Not only because of the accumulation of garbage, reminiscent of the “winters of discontent” when James Callaghan was prime minister and civil servants seemed to be permanently on strike, but because they have been forced to deposit the bags of waste in the bathtubs of their houses (with the consequent rotten smell) or –those who can afford it– to rent containers for 300 euros per week and hire private companies to do the collection. An additional cost in the midst of inflation that is expected to reach twenty percent in the winter, and that will raise the combined electricity and gas bills to 600 euros or more per month. As if to go elsewhere with the music (for those who can afford teleworking, it will be cheaper to rent a house in Costa Rica or Turkey, and spend there from November to March).
Nor is it particularly popular that the government is paying taxpayers’ money for a company to collect rubbish from Bute House (the Prime Minister’s official residence) and official buildings in the capital, as if in the matter of waste would also have classes. Or that Sturgeon has gone to Copenhagen in the midst of the crisis to open an office for the promotion of the country, at a cost of almost one million euros per year. The SNP has been in power for fifteen consecutive years, with no prospect of losing it, and the opposition’s main criticisms are for the management of public health and education, the prevalence of drugs and the dismal infant mortality and health rates compared to the rest of Europe. The mounds of rotten food, used nappies, bottle caps and hamburger wrappers littering the streets of Glasgow and Edinburgh only add to the impression that things aren’t working. Although in England it is not much better. Garbage collectors are not on strike yet (everything will come), but doctors, nurses, lawyers, mail carriers and subway and railway operators are queuing up.
The municipal authority that manages the sixty main Scottish councils (Cosla) has offered a 5% wage increase to refuse collectors, but their union representatives have rejected it, because inflation is currently twelve percent (it will not stay there) , and they would lose in terms of purchasing power. They would prefer an extra payment of four thousand euros to cover the cost of energy.
In most of the country the strike continues and the mountains of waste are getting higher and higher, with no prospect of a solution. In Edinburgh the garbage collectors have given a truce and started cleaning, but next week they will make another break. Natives and tourists put their hands to their heads and, above all, they cover their noses.
