Reykjavík Grapevine - 12.08.2011, Blaðsíða 6

6
The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 12 — 2011 Do you wish he were YOUR mayor? Why/why not? We have a
fully functional letters page for you to tell us all about it.
Reykjavík | Welcome to!
Dear reader,
Welcome to Iceland. Whether you’re
here for fun and travel or for business, I
hope you’ll enjoy a good time here and
will get to know some locals. I would
also like to make a special request that
you spend a lot of money throughout
the duration of your stay. Do not save
on dining and drinking. Allow yourself
some luxury. You deserve it, and it is
good for the economy. I ask that you do
not visit the retail outlets run by the Sal-
vation Army (Garðastræti 6, 101 Reykja-
vík) or the Red Cross (Laugavegur 12,
101 Reykjavík). Even though they are
fun shops, they are rather inexpensive.
You should rather visit more expensive
shops.
A lot of tourists that visit the country
wonder why it is called Iceland, be-
cause—despite what the name might
indicate—it isn’t at all cold here. The
average temperature in Reykjavík is
1°C. Nowhere in the world has bet-
ter summers than Iceland. It might
snow in the month of June, however.
That is called ‘a spring snowfall’. July
is the hottest month. When it comes
around you better have a t-shirt handy,
because the temperature can reach up
to 20°C. Weather.com often states a
temperature followed with a “feels like”
temperature. When the heat in Reykja-
vík reaches 20°C, they will often say it
“feels like” 15°C. That is probably due
to something known as ‘the wind chill
factor.’ No Icelander understands this.
If we had this “feels like” feature in our
weather reporting, we would say that it
“feels like” 40°C whenever the temper-
ature reached 20°C, without exception.
This demonstrates the importance of
‘mentality’ and ‘attitude.’
But how can it be that such a warm
country came to possess such a frigid
name? Yes, the explanation is simple:
MISUNDERSTANDING. Ingólfur Ar-
narson, the first man that found Reyk-
javík, wasn’t on his way here at all. He
was en route to the United States of
America, to buy grapes and other fast
food that grew wild there in those days.
He was very interested in food. And
also homicide. On his way he noticed a
cloud of smoke ascending to the heav-
ens from an unknown country. His cu-
rious nature got the best of him, and he
changed his course and set sail to Reyk-
javík (Reykjavík literally means “smoky
bay”!).
As he disembarked his ship, he saw
that the smoke was in fact steam ris-
ing from Reykjavík’s many swimming
pools. He was therefore quick in tearing
off the suit of armour that he had worn
in case he’d encounter some Native
Americans while picking grapes, and
jumping into some swim trunks. After
swimming a good 500 metres he sat
in the hot tub and relaxed. After a fun
chat with the locals he had forgotten all
about America. Who needs to travel all
the way to America to pick grapes when
there’s a shop on Laugavegur called
Vínberið (Vínberið literally means: “the
grape”)? Ingólfur decided to settle here.
He rented a small apartment along
with his wife, Hallveig Fróðadóttir, who
many claim was the daughter of Frodo
from ‘Lord Of The Rings,’ Nothing has
been proven about that, however.
One day Ingólfur and Hallveig were
taking a stroll around town. They were
walking their dog, who was called Plútó
and was a Great Dane. It was a sizzling
hot summer’s day. It was long before
the t-shirt was invented. They were
both dressed in full suits of armour,
with swords and shields and helmets
and everything. They stopped by at Ís-
búð Vesturbæjar in Hagamelur to get
some ice cream and cool down. The
story goes that Ingólfur asked the clerk
whether she knew what the country was
called.
She thought it was called Thule. In-
gólfur felt that was a stupid name.
“No country can be called Thule,”
he said.
Outside the ice cream shop, a crowd
had gathered. They had heard that
foreign visitors were in town. A lot of
those people were elves. Ingólfur then
approached the crowd, raised his ice
cream cone aloft and shouted:
“Henceforth this country will be
called Iceland, because one can get the
world’s best ice cream here!”.
Today we have a statue of Ingólfur.
The statue depicts Ingólfur dying of
heat, leaning on his dog.
Don’t be a stranger, be like Ingólfur!
Best regards,
Jón Gnarr
Mayor of Reykjavík
Mayor’s Address:
WELCOME TO REYKJAVÍK
A couple of weeks back, we ran a
news story about a city proposal to
give police the power to issue tick-
ets for littering on the spot. Anyone
who has walked down Laugavegur
on a Sunday morning probably un-
derstands the motivation behind
such a proposal. The photo we ran
with the story showed the aftermath
of Independence Day celebrations
on Austurstræti, to which one astute
reader commented, “That's funny.
I'm seeing a lot of trash there, but no
trash cans.”
Therein lies part of the problem: the city
is woefully lacking in trashcans. While it
can be argued that all one needs to do
is walk a few metres before finding one,
there's one thing you definitely won't
find and that’s a public recycling bin.
LAGGING BEHIND IN RECYCLING
Recycling is a relatively new concept in
Iceland. Karl Sigurðsson, chairperson of
the Environmental and Traffic Commit-
tee for the city, admitted when he spoke
to us that, “We are lagging a bit behind
other nations, such as Sweden and Ger-
many in the area of recycling. It's not
very advanced.”
This is certainly the case for those
of us living downtown. It is possible to
find some recycling dumpsters here and
there—on Skúlagata, for example, there
are bins for paper and milk cartons—but
for the most part, making the effort to
recycle your waste is quite a challenge.
In order for city residents to effec-
tively recycle, they first need to sort their
own recyclables. Perhaps a minor incon-
venience, but in other countries—such
as in the province of Québec, Canada—
all recyclables can be placed in a single
bin, which a special recyclables garbage
truck collects curb side. In Iceland, how-
ever, city residents must transport their
own recyclables to a recycling centre,
such as Sorpa. There is exactly one Sor-
pa in 101 Reykjavík (on Eggertsgata),
three on the west side of town, and five
on the immediate east side of town. And
if you don't have a car, good luck.
Having to sort and transport one's
own recyclables may explain why there
is so little enthusiasm for the process,
and why most recyclables seem to be
bottles and cans collected directly from
trashcans by people hoping to trade
them for cash. Karl is aware of this and
says that the number of people actively
recycling in the city are “few and far be-
tween.” Considering the drawbacks of
the current system, he says the city has
a plan in place to change this.
THE CITY’S PLAN TO CATCH UP
The plan—which begins later this year
and extends into 2013—is still in the
tentative stages, so details such as
exactly when different stages will be
implemented and how much they will
cost have not been fully worked out. But
here's the thumbnail sketch of how the
city intends to confront the recycling
problem:
First and foremost, city officials want
to issue a recycling bin to every city resi-
dent. Whether residents will have to pay
for these out of pocket, or whether they
will be funded through the budget, has
not yet been decided, but Karl says the
target is to initiate this before the end of
this year.
City residents will still be encour-
aged to sort their own recyclables, be-
ginning with separating paper and plas-
tic from regular trash. In the next stage
of implementation, items such as metal
and glass will be added to the list, fol-
lowed by organic matter, by 2013.
As with other municipal systems that
affect surrounding communities, such
as the bus system, the city wants to be
sure that towns in the capital area follow
the same example. Such a system, in its
completely realised form, would bring
curb side recycling services to over half
the population of the country.
At a time when budget cuts are the
order of the day, these broad steps over
a period of two years is pretty ambitious,
but Karl says it's a subject close to his
heart. “We have employees constantly
working on ideas [for recycling],” he
says. “We're a little behind, but we will
catch up. We don't want to be the laugh-
ing stock of Europe.”
Karl emphasises that the plan is far from a top-
down process. He encourages all residents
of Reykjavík and surrounding areas to submit
their own ideas and questions to the city by
emailing sorphirtha@reykjavik.is.
Reykjavík | Recycling
Opinion | Malcom Kenneth Fraser
Piles Of Trash
And Pigs In Traffic
PAUL FONTAINE
JULIA STAPLES
Since the beginning of the
year, garbage in Reykjavík
has been collected once
every ten days, rather than
once a week as it was before
the city council voted for drastic bud-
get cuts. For the past few days, trash
has been piling up in my backyard. I
went to find out on the internet when
exactly the dustmen are supposed to
come by my street and do their mag-
ic. As it turned out, the convoy is six
days overdue, which is why I decided
to write an inflammatory email to the
people responsible for the nuisance.
I got a response the next morning in-
forming me that while the calendar
detailing the frequency of garbage col-
lection in my area is accurate, access
to my backstreet is very often blocked
by badly parked cars. The email went
on: “We will try again tomorrow at 11
am and hopefully no cars will block the
entrance.”
Oh all right, that sounds legit. No,
hang on a second… you will try again
tomorrow? It’s not like I’m asking you
to do me a favour. Collecting garbage
is not exactly a matter of trial and er-
ror. Either it is done or it isn’t. I forgot
about the pile of trash in my garden
for a minute and started to think about
another problem raised by the answer
I got from city officials. Cars blocking
the entrance to my backstreet… Isn’t
Reykjavík equipped with tow trucks?
Wouldn’t it be possible to forcibly re-
move offending cars from their unlaw-
fully acquired parking spaces?
For as long as I have been living
in this town, I’ve noticed that drivers
have a tendency to park their cars any-
where, with neither consideration for
pedestrians nor for other drivers. It is
not uncommon to see people pushing
a stroller crossing to the other side of
the street because of a car parked on
the sidewalk, while in such a situation,
a person in a wheelchair is left to their
own fate. Foreigners in town are often
surprised at how drivers in Reykjavík
parallel park. More often than not, your
typical driver in Reykjavík will steer
front first into the parking space rather
than slowly driving backwards into it.
Several reasons can explain this kind
of behaviour: the lack of driving skills,
the lack of consideration for others, but
mostly the lack of a penalty for parking
like an incompetent and inconsiderate
pig on wheels.
While drivers in downtown Reykja-
vík can be sure that they will get a tick-
et the minute they exceed the parking
time they paid for, they needn’t worry
about getting their car towed away
for blocking a sidewalk, a fire hydrant,
or access to my backstreet. Only in
Reykjavík have I seen cars parked on
speed bumps or on roundabouts. I tried
Googling the price of a ticket for ille-
gal parking plus towing fee. It seems to
add up to around 30.000 ISK. Looking
out my kitchen window, I can already
see 60.000 ISK worth of uncollected
community money. If I were to walk to
the end of my street that amount could
reach 150.000 ISK. But instead of har-
vesting the bountiful amounts of low-
hanging fruits, local authorities have
decided to space out the frequency of
garbage collecting, leaving me to con-
template the pile of crap in my garden,
expecting that dustmen will hopefully
come by after the weekend and try
again.
Recycling In Reykjavík
Catching Up To The 21st Century