At first, the invitation made me happy. People were organising to clean the city. Then I started thinking about the message underneath it: are residents being asked to help, or being handed a problem that the institutions have failed to solve?
That is the frustration in my 1 July video. I talk about rubbish, disagreements between authorities and the feeling that the citizen becomes responsible for everything. The anger is real. It does not establish that a particular NGO is dishonest, and the video does not provide evidence for that accusation.
The useful question is more concrete: what happens to the same street after the clean-up ends?
Who is responsible for municipal waste in Kosovo?
Article 15 of Kosovo’s Law on Waste assigns municipalities responsibility for organising their waste-management system, implementing local plans and reporting on it. Its operator-selection provision was amended in 2022: municipalities select appropriately permitted operators under procurement rules. These are continuing responsibilities, not duties that disappear when volunteers turn up. The law and amendment are linked below.
Residents still have a responsibility not to litter. A collection operator has work to perform. Local government must organise and oversee the service. Treating one of those roles as the whole solution lets the others escape scrutiny.
Count the service, not only the bags
The video uses a few bags of rubbish as shorthand for a small action against a persistent problem. A bag count tells us something was removed; it cannot tell us whether missed collections, overflowing bins or repeated dumping have stopped.
Here is a simple illustrative check for a street with three scheduled collections a week. Over four weeks, there should be 12 collections. If nine happen, the completion rate is 9 ÷ 12 × 100 = 75%. Three collections, or 25%, were missed. A successful volunteer event does not change that denominator.
This is not measured performance for Prishtina or any named company. It shows what residents could document: the published schedule, dated observations and a record of complaints and responses. The same location photographed at comparable times is more useful than a dramatic picture with no date.
| Illustrative four-week check | Result |
|---|---|
| Scheduled collections | 12 |
| Completed collections | 9 |
| Missed collections | 3 |
| Completion rate | 75% |
What a useful clean-up invitation would include
I would want it to say where the collected waste will go, who will take it away, and which institution will handle recurring problems. It should leave a clear route for reporting an overflowing bin or a missed collection, with someone responsible for following up.
A volunteer can care about the neighbourhood and still demand competent government. Helping on Saturday does not cancel the right to ask on Monday where the money went and whether the service was delivered.
The stray-dog concerns I mention are a separate public-safety issue. Counting rubbish bags cannot demonstrate that those concerns have been resolved either. Each problem needs its own responsible service and evidence of progress.
This connects to my point about roads and maintenance: a visible intervention matters most when someone takes responsibility for what follows. A clean street should be an ordinary part of living in a city, not a special occasion.
Sources and calculation notes
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Legal basis: Law No. 04/L-060 on Waste, Article 15, read with Law No. 08/L-071, Article 9. These establish responsibilities; this article does not adjudicate a specific contract breach.
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Illustrative calculation: 3 collections/week × 4 weeks = 12; 9/12 = 75%; (12−9)/12 = 25%. No municipal performance data were supplied. Calculation inputs.
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Original video and thumbnail: Eduard Luta on TikTok. Published 2026-07-01. Research checked 27 September 2026.