Tires, paint pots, chemical products, car parts, cartons, planks... and the first clue: a number of slate roof tiles. The second clue was undeniable - the name of a building company based in southern Luxembourg.
Gauthier Berera, a member of a local environmentally conscious citizens collective, said he had contacted the business, which rejected responsibility, blaming one of its employees. Nevertheless, the issue that Luxembourgish waste was being fly-tipped in neighbouring France remained.
Elsewhere within the dumped waste was a piece of plastic bearing the name of a building materials supplier, also based in Luxembourg. Gauthier deplored the fact it would be harder to make a formal complaint, as the supplier’s customers could have been responsible for the fly tipping.
Around 20 volunteers from the town arrived to clean up a communal path on Sunday 1 September. The clean-up was organised by the citizens collective after months of finding fl- tipped waste in their forest. Berera explained they could not allow it to continue, and launched an appeal on Facebook for volunteers. One volunteer said in all the time she had lived in Audun-le-Tiche, she had never seen it polluted to this extent, and it was clear the perpetrators were not local. Other residents said they hoped the authorities would intervene, as they had in the neighbouring town of Aumetz.
Lucien Piovano, mayor of Audun, congratulated the excellent initiative displayed by the collective, and arranged for them to be supplied with gloves and rubbish sacks. He also asked municipal services to help dispose of the waste. He said the matter had been passed to police but he was not sure how the case would progress, given the cross-border difficulties involved.
As always in fly-tipping cases, the question remains why the perpetrators did not dump the waste in appropriate locations. In Luxembourg, as in France, there are certain limits placed by recycling centres (maximal volume, opening hours, and so on), which have been cited as contributing to illegal dumping of rubbish. Piovano said this was no excuse, and that there was always a better solution than polluting nature.
