Keeping Our Canton Green

I live in a rural farming community with small villages and a lot of preserved forest. Our Canton is Hautefort and the chef lieu of the canton is the village of Hautefort. Hautefort has a magnificent historic chateau that evolved from a 13th century military castle into 17th century splendid baroque masterpiece it is today. Its history is entwined with Bertrand LeBorn, the first minstrel of France, Richard the Lion Hearted and for a few centuries it was the seat of power in this region, Le Pays d'Ans.
It was burned by the Germans at the end of WW2 and sat in ruins until the mid 60's when an American woman bought it and with the help of the French government rebuilt it. Just as the roof was being finished in 1969, the carpentry caught fire and it burned a second time! Undeterred, the roof was rebuilt and today it is a restored masterpiece complete with a celebrated formal garden. The Village is a little gem complete with a baroque church and old hospital. The architecture is quite unlike anything else in this region.
Alright, that's the story of the picture, but the story I want to tell is about the greening of our department. 6 years ago, a real crisis loomed over this region. A region of farmers who voted as their politicians told them to were about to lose a lot of the green because a lot of the land was going to be destroyed by huge limestone quarries and France was in a program of building huge trash incinerators as a way to make money. They were going to be used to burn trash from Germany, The Netherlands and Belgium. The quarries, after they were dug would become landfills. The communes stood to make money and went after these opportunities and some individuals would make small fortunes by destroying the environment. The ground water would be polluted, the air quality would suffer and so would the population because of the dioxins released into the air.
A small but very vocal movement started to protest and educate the communities of the dangers that threatened them. At first, it was easy for the politicians to label them as eco nuts and opposed to progress. There was a lot of bitter fighting and slowly, through political action, town meetings and constant pressure, first the quarries were defeated and now finally, the entire incinerator program is being abandoned all over France.
What are we doing with our trash? Triage, separation is mandatory. We are provided with recycling bags from our mayors and here in the rural areas, there are separate containers for different kinds of trash. There are glass collection points, battery collection bins, special bins for televisions and other appliances.
The big stores don't give out plastic bags anymore. It's hip use straw bags or cloth and the stores sell very cheaply, multi use heavy duty bags. You can tell you local post office not to send you publicity and catalogues.
Yesterday, Thanksgiving in the USA, but a normal day for me was spent with a friend getting rid of all the junk we had laying about in our barns. We loaded his van and a small trailor 6 times and went to the dump (decheterie) near Hautefort. The dump is a neat facility with a ramp that makes it easy to dump into the different bins. I had a lot of old appliances left from the people who sold us our house 5 years ago. So stoves washing machines, old metal parts, glass, bags of hardened cement, even a 50 liter barrel of 45 year old (at least) motor oil (that went into a special tank for recycling oil).
All this is a complete turn around in the last 4 years! Now to get elected, the local politicians have to talk and think green! I even took the opportunity to pick up a new composting bin provided by the commune for only 10 Euros.
This thinking has made it possible for old abandoned water mills to be brought back to life and refitted to generate electricity! Any alternative energy system now can be subsidized by the government.
What has happened in the Dordogne shows what can happen if people organize and educate each other. We had to educate the politicians, some learned the hard way and aren't around anymore. 2 years ago, there was a last ditch attempt to sell the incinerator plan and there was meeting in Perigueux by the Departement Consul-General. When he started to insult people in the crowd during the question period at the end of his presentation, almost 1500 people got up and left in a mass protest which made the local television news! Amonth later, the plan was dead in tthe water!
I was inspired to write about this after finding "longlivethevillagegreen" blog today via the "politicsinmudville" page. A great Ohio blog about ecology, politics and the Kinks!
I have a link posted in the sidebar!