Waste is a Terrible Thing to Mind

Planning some European travel this year. If you're going to Greece, wear hip boots and bring a clothespin for your nose because things have certainly changed since the days of Perseus. It seems to have been taken over by a new stream of thought from the lesser known philosopher, Trashius.

Athens, the Boston of Greece, is having a garbage crisis. The main landfill of the city in Ano Liosia reached capacity in late December. Since Athens produces 6,000 tons of trash a day, one would think that those in charge would have noticed, say, in November, but alas, they made no contingency plans at all.

To combat bad publicity, their Chief of Landfills, Panacea Crockapoopoulis hired Tony Snow to act as press secretary because " he's obviously used to slinging shit". In his first press conference Snow said, "Someday they hope to be able to walk to the moon on this garbage. To Greece, it's their space program".

Space continues to be top of mind for all Greeks as their temporary landfill , which they started using three weeks ago, is now full too. Their third spot, the bedroom of a Mrs. Yankadickalotulous, is expected to be filled by today at noon.

The problem came to a head at Ano Liosia when an extremely heavy set English visitor, a Mr. Python, asked if he could drop just one more "After Dinner" mint wrapper onto the landfill; a mint he had used to cleanse the palate after a Christmas meal. The whole place simply collapsed under the weight of the wrapper.

With the shining Parthenon upon the hill now filling with Hefty Flex Force bags as residents look to dump their trash somewhere, Greece is ranked last by The EU Enviromental Agency for levels of recycling ...... and it was recently named the #2 producer of garbage in Europe, 2nd only to Malta, best known for their dairy drinks, Malta Milk. Should Malta not be able to fulfill the responsibilities of winning, it will lose it's crown and Greece will fulfill it's responsibilities.

Ano Liosa is a 520 foot mountain of partially treated sewage, hospital waste, construction site rubble and household trash. Making lemonade from lemons, it has been covered with train set mountain paper and is being put on cheaper tour bus routes as "The Acrapolis".

Even their off shore sewage treatment near Piraeus has accumulated thousands of tons of toxic sludge, some of which they actually shipped to Germany ... as part of their "forgive and forget" program from World War 2.

Waste is a terrible thing to mind! Professor Immodium Urineanalysis, Dukakis Professor of Waste Management at the Universitas of Gyros expressed frustration when he commented, "I don't know to do. It's all greek to me".

Why not visit someplace cleaner this year...how about Chernobyl?