For some time now, the Rog Autonomous Factory has been facing problems with garbage disposal. Because we are immersed in the modern world of consumption, in which the individual inevitably produces excessive amounts of packaging waste, we must also have access to public infrastructure for the management of such waste in the urban context.
Since the MOL (Municipality of Ljubljana) entered a new chapter in the hyper-gentrification of Ljubljana, many city residents have been forced to face the introduction of a new waste management regime. New garbage collection points have been designated with a system of underground bins, which can be accessed with an electronic card. This system has so far only been introduced in the city’s most crowded tourist center, so that previous bins would no longer spoil tourist photos. This however, is spreading from the city center to outer neighborhoods as well, as the need for control and new profitable garbage deals of the authority grows.
In addition to the well-known scandals of such and other robberies by the mayor's friends, the system of underground reservoirs has become a kind of source of control and repression over the population. As small gaps in the new “bins” are impractically designed and of inappropriate size, there is also a significant problem with the accessibility of waste disposal in bins. Suddenly, access became limited to individuals - cardholders, thus individualizing the right to public service. At the same time, such individualization is also a source of repressive action of the city garbage management department against individuals in the event of improper "voluntary" waste separation work.
Most of the inhabitants of the city center are subject to all this, including the neighborhood on Trubarjeva cesta, where the Autonomous factory Rog community lives as well. Since the renovation of Trubarjeva, the gentrified center has expanded all the way to Rozmanova ulica. As is already known from the practice of other parts of the city, underground containers are signaling emerging expensive hipster cafes, hip-urban art projects, airbnbs, rent increases and other negative socio-economic destructive processes. We perceive distress not only because we ourselves no longer know where to manage our own waste, but also because until recently, we regularly found garbage bags in front of our gates deposited by our neighbors who have found themselves in a similar situation. With a notice board, we called on the wider neighborhood not to dump garbage at Autonomous factory Rog and to act responsibly self-organized.
Autonomous factory Rog is a community space and a space of community. It is not only regular users who create and work in it on a daily basis - the yard is constantly used by many visitors. The community of Autonomous factory Rog has always taken care of cleanliness on its own, and with the new regime, MOL seems to be (purposefully) preventing this, as we are denied access to garbage bins and disposal. Together with many residents of the neighborhood we are thus forced to look for disliked solutions that cannot be sustainable even with the best of intentions.
We call for an end to the repressive regime of underground containers and a return to the old system of rubbish bins, where access to disposal, recycling and reuse was unlimited for all!
STOP GENTRIFICATION!
STOP CAPITALIZATION ON GARBAGE!