International volunteers recycle clothes for refugees on Lesbos

[unhappycamper]

http://www.dw.com/en/international-volunteers-recycle-clothes-for-refugees-on-lesbos/a-19136133

As Athens scrambles to implement a deal between the EU and Turkey, for those helping refugees on the ground very little has changed. Gemima Harvey reports on a special group of volunteers on Lesbos.

International volunteers recycle clothes for refugees on Lesbos
Gemima Harvey
26.03.2016

Volunteers from Greece, Syria, Spain, the Netherlands, England, the United States, Finland, Germany, Australia, Ireland and Iceland gather at the Hermes laundry in Anaxos, on Lesbos island, Greece. They glove up and sort through the wet clothes, socks and used blankets that have been collected from along the shorelines and at transit camps, discarded after aid groups provide the newly arrived refugees and migrants with the warmth and dignity of clean, dry clothes.

Once sorted through and placed into piles, the items are washed, dried and bagged, ready to be delivered to clothing distribution points all around the island, feeding the cycle with fresh clothes for dwindling stockpiles. This recycling is made possible by the Dirty Girls of Lesbos (DG) - an organization started by Alison Terry-Evans, an Australian with an enterprising spirit, in October last year.

About half of the one million refugees, asylum seekers and migrants who came to Europe from across the sea last year landed on Lesbos, which has already seen 86,000 arrivals since the start of 2016. After reaching the island and having basic needs met they are sent to the Moria hot spot for registration before continuing on to camps on the mainland, or waiting at the border with Macedonia in dire conditions, with little hope that it will open. Fleeing with the few possessions they can carry, their bags often tossed into the sea by smugglers to make room for evermore people in a perilously overcrowded dinghy, the pressing demand for a change of clothes is clear.

~snip~

At the laundry about 50 tonnes of clothing and blankets have been washed with sterilizing detergent and dried at 93 degrees before being redistributed. Previously, these perfectly good, but wet and dirty, materials were sent as trash to landfills, adding to the already large piles of lifejackets and boat debris.

[raging moderate]

1. More unsung heroes.

[BeyondGeography]

2. Many unsung heroes in Lesbos