Where does environmental protection start and where does it end, if it ends at all? After several years pondering the issue, I concluded that it's all about culture. Those who presume to be cultured should take care of the environment. You can't claim you're civilised one minute and then throw your rubbish on the street or leave it in the forest. It's also extremely discourteous, to say the least.

Nevertheless, the fact that education should start at school must not serve as an excuse for adults to claim they're too busy to think about it. Another of my pet peeves centres on people who blame everyone else for dirty streets and fields and then - simultaneously - throw their cigarettes out of the window. What can one do except reproach them for their actions and remind them that their words and actions are incompatible?

I remember once watching a Bulgarian TV programme about separate refuse collection. One of the interviewees was a British person who related how, when he was about 10 years old, education on separate waste collection started in UK schools. This involved children's songs, animation films and advertisements. Later, when the kids went home, they'd tell their parents and this is how the environmental ball started rolling. Similar things now happen in Bulgaria, 30 years later. But are children good enough to teach their parents? And what about those who don't have children? Will they persist in innocently throwing their rubbish on the street, hiding behind the "see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil" maxim?

Another common excuse here is that the "duplicitous authorities make fools out of us by forcing us to separate our waste because it ends up being thrown into the landfill altogether". Well, various media outlets interviewed and reviewed organisations for refuse utilisation and even published lists of places where the refuse actually gets recycled. But this was not enough for the infidels who kept on hiding behind their mistrust and, worse still, kept on throwing their refuse on the street.

Another laughable excuse is when people say "they sweep here and so it's OK to throw my cigarette right on the street". But wait, the funniest one is still to come and it's very business-socially oriented: "throwing rubbish on the street creates employment!" Oh, come on! This one is incredibly communistic: creating employment where it is not needed!

So, where does environmental education start and where does the culture in this regard end? Does it start from a specific country, a capital or an office, a school or an educational ministry? Or does it start from the family itself setting examples to children? There is a lot to think about. And throwing rubbish on the street is just one of thousands of examples connected to cleanliness and environmental protection.