environment

World Environment day is observed on June 5 every year across the globe. This year’s theme is «Connecting People to Nature».
World Environment Day was inaugurated in 1972 following the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment in Stockholm, Sweden – the first international conference on environmental issues. Since then, approximately 150 countries around the globe actively participate in the activities of the World Environment Day. Cambodia is one of them. Cambodia faces in particular a big waste problem. In Battambang, for instance, a waste disposal service was only just recently introduced – if only in limited areas. Therefore, many communities are still without public waste disposal service and thus people simply burn their waste in the evening. They do it in the evening as the smell of burnt plastic is extremely unpleasant and toxic fumes are also released as a result.

In the Safe House there is no public waste disposal service but on the initiative of Theavy Bun and Patrik Roux, big containers were installed where plastic bottles as well as cans can be deposited. Once they are full they are collected by somebody who buy them as raw materials (plastic and aluminium) per kilo.

The purpose of the World Environment Day is to draw attention to recycling, the destruction of nature and the awareness of our environment.

Home is a 2009 documentary by Yann Arthus-Bertrand. It shows the diversity of life on Earth and how humanity is threatening the ecological balance of the planet. Moreover, the documentary pays tribute to the beauty of nature as well as its fragility.