Week in review
Slovenians vow to clean up their mountains
Photo: Flickr.com/ majamarko
This week: Germany digs deep into the festival that went horribly wrong; Slovenia picks up the pieces; And soundtrack of the great outdoors, how to deal with those post-travel blues.
The Cost of Free Love
Following the Love Parade tragedy in Duisburg last weekend, the mayor of the German town has been urged to quit.
Over 5 hundred people were injured and 21 people died when panic broke out in the crowd at the event.
Although the causes of the accident are still unclear and witnesses have given conflicting accounts of the incident, many fingers are being pointed at Duisburg’s mayor Adolf Sauerland.
On Friday, Sauerland’s own conservative party turned against him as they urged him to resign.
Wolfgang Bosbach, a lawmaker with Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats, said the mayor bears the responsibility for possible mistakes made by the city.
Prosecutors are still investigating exactly what went wrong on July 24th and may charge those they deem responsible with negligent manslaughter.
Operation Clean Up
In April, almost a quarter of a million Slovenians volunteered to clean up the country in a single day.
They turned anger into action following years of illegal dumping of industrial and household waste in forests, villages and by the roads.
Based on that campaign, Slovenia's now decided to focus on cleaning up its mountains, where about 3 million visitors are expected this season.
Concerned citizens hit the mountains to pick up candy wrappers, plastic bottles and other discarded items.
The organizers of the clean up brought along 20 thousands eco-friendly plastic bags to hang outside mountain huts and the surrounding areas.
Despite the campaign to reduce waste, activists say there is still a long way to go before changing fundamental attitudes towards littering.
The Ideal Antidote
Nobody enjoys coming home from a great outdoor vacation only to be chained back to their desk and computer at work.
A new website called Free Nature Sounds allows individuals to mix various outdoor noises to act as a background soundtrack while they slave away indoors.
Or, according to the website “while reading or meditating or just for fun.”
The website allows for the individual to loop, edit, increase the volume and add up to 4 different tracks to their composition.
It even allows for people to make a sound file that they like and then share it with their friends and family to help them relax, as well.
With settings like tribal drums, forest birds, wind in leaves and fire, the options are endless.
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