Pollution in its many forms

THE WAY THINGS ARE

Colette NiReamonn Ioannidou

Maari contacted me recently, incandescent with fury, to let off steam about her ‘foreign’ neighbour who ‘Threw his dachshund’s sausages over the wall onto my compost heap.’ The good-natured dog was foisted on him by a friend leaving the island who couldn’t take Hertzy with him. Given the name and the breed, I rush to inform that the said sausages where not Bratwurst or other such German tasties, but poo. Maybe he thought he was helpfully adding to your pile, I suggested trying to keep my sang very froid. She didn’t take that too well saying she wouldn’t dream of throwing Leonard’s or Khalil’s poo into his garden.

She has a pair of mini Doberpeople, one languid and lazy, fat as an oversized Liverwurst, the other a skinny, nerve-driven nutcase, named affectionately after lovers she had during her hippie phase: one Lebanese, the other a Leonard Cohen doppelganger. She was considering throwing the offending pongers back. I thought that unwise unless she wanted a Berlin type Wall to spring up between her and her erstwhile quiet neighbour, with poo being thrown around like guided missiles.

‘Just have a calm word with him.’ I said, ‘Mention a paper bag and his dustbin.’ I await the sequel.

People who don’t pick up dog poo need shaming. I saw a man step out of a van and hiss a word I can’t repeat here because there was a pile underfoot. He then had the unpleasant task of cleaning it off his athletic shoe, one you’ll understand if you’ve had this tantalising experience with your athlete’s foot, given all the little gullies in the soles.

A friend in Limassol said she loved the curfew because she lives on a main road and it gave her a literal breather from fumes and noise. I echoed her delight (sorry and sympathies night-lifers) given my spot on a busy road. And it’s not just fumes. Apparently microscopic particles of metal (Irish Times article by Anthony King last December) spew out from cars, trucks and buses, unseen and odourless from brake wear, engine exhaust and engine wear with the highest concentrations along the busiest roads.

So, each time you brake or accelerate, they add to what we already have to contend with in our atmosphere. These wee nasties are sneaky things that can infiltrate your brain by sailing up your nose or down your trigeminal nerve, the largest in your head, bypassing the barrier cells that block toxins from your grey matter.

Cypriots rained curses on the Sahara Desert on March 23 as it rained grit into our showers resulting in a pinkish mess that clung to everything; car owners were particularly irritated. Pollution worsens every year. I’ve lived here several decades but have never before seen the magnitude of dust that at times now clouds the Kyrenia mountains. Added to these woes, we are in the sneeze season as spring in her usual extravaganza of flowery fertility, makes what should be a jolly time, a misery for allergy sufferers along with the dust and the car detritus.

I sometimes think we allergy prone folk are the planet’s Geiger counters. I recall the introduction of water softener, adverts showing women (always the mamas) stuffing the washed items to their noses and breathing in the perfume with deep, satisfied sighs or gently lassoing their children with ultra-soft towels. I tried it and nearly throttled myself. I’m allergic to aromas, and loss of pretty female stand-close-to-me-without-fear products was a trifle depressing; I loved perfume when young. However, I was told that softeners are oil-based and not as kind to the environment as they are to our clothes, sheets, towels etc.

I also had to give up on smelly house cleaners, now I use vinegar and lemon where possible and, like a sniffing wine connoisseur, I have to do a nose test on anything for use in the home before buying it. I can tell immediately if it’s not for me, my nose delivers the message up the tube to the danger-alert zone in my brain and I get an immediate response hitting me between the eyes. Even walking in the street, washing on other people’s lines puts my allergy mechanism on red.

The municipality asks us to pick up our doggy poo but doesn’t always provide receptacles in which to imprison it. It’s very unpleasant when doggy goes through the motions and one has to carry the offending bag a fair distance. I usually take mine home but it’s not always practical.

Science is getting to grips with Covid and, hopefully, masks cut out some of the mess we inhale. However, although hated curfews and restrictions have made a slight environmental improvement, masks and gloves litter the streets, even when dustbins are at hand. We have succeeded in being the dominant species but, polluting almost everything we touch, we have made a compost heap of our planet.