Aerodrom Municipality is launching a major spring free bulky-waste collection drive. Start: Monday, May 18. Finish: mid-July. A two-month intervention covering every main neighbourhood in the municipality.

The specific schedule: Mičurin on May 18-19, with containers on „Anastas Mitrev" street behind the park near the substation, and on „Venjamin Mačukovski" street near the substation by the railway station. Ostrovo on May 20-21, at „Vladimir Komarov" no. 9 and nos. 6-16 behind „Skopjanka" shopping centre. The rest of the schedule is on the municipality's official website.

The idea is simple and necessary. Old furniture, clothes and discarded appliances usually end up in wild dumps - between buildings, at the edge of a neighbourhood, or in green areas meant for recreation. It's an ugly picture that hurts both the municipality and its residents.

The question is whether this kind of campaign really works long-term. Last autumn's drive, according to the municipality, was „successful" - but success doesn't mean that in a few months the wild dumps won't reappear. Bulky waste isn't a seasonal problem - people have old things and throw them around all year, not just twice a year in a special window.

What would be better? The kind of setup German and Austrian cities have - scheduling a dedicated pickup. When you're getting rid of an old sofa, you call, they give you a date, and a truck comes exactly then. No two-month campaigns, no wild dumps. That's a public utility that actually serves.

Skopje's municipalities don't have that. We have „twice a year" - autumn and spring. And so we have illegal dumps all year round. That's not „room for improvement", that's a systemic gap in public services.

Until then, it's good that Aerodrom does what it can. Residents can take advantage - free, organised, and with no guilt over pollution. But the real solution is something else, and we all know it.