Late at night, City of Skopje inspectors caught a man from Kisela Voda unloading construction rubble and bulky waste around the bins - old furniture, a three-seater sofa, planks, dumped on the lawn in front of a residential block. He was fined on the spot. It is the third such case in a matter of days: earlier the police issued a penalty notice to a 22-year-old throwing waste onto a street in Shuto Orizari.

Mayor Orce Gjorgjievski responded on Facebook in what has become the standard register: "While our crews work around the clock for a cleaner city, individuals destroy what has been done and pollute the environment we all live in. Such irresponsibility will not go unsanctioned." Zero tolerance, inspectors in the field 24 hours a day, and an announcement: a procedure is under way to install cameras on public surfaces to catch offenders faster. "Skopje is our shared home. Let us behave responsibly."

Let us be precise about who did what. The man who unloaded his old sofa beside a bin at night knew what he was doing and chose to do it. The fine is his. But when the third case in a few days ends with an identical post from the mayor, the question is no longer only about the individual. Where is a Skopje resident supposed to legally leave an old mattress or a bag of rubble - and is that easier than dumping it beside a bin at night? If the answer to the second is no, the cameras will record more and more, and the piles will not get any smaller.

The cameras are "in procedure". The inspectors are in the field. The sofa, meanwhile, is on the lawn. Zero tolerance - one Facebook post after another.