Young Cristian Kalanyos, a resident of the central Romania city of Alba Iulia, is regularly picking up the cigarette butts tourists dump around the Alba Carolina citadel. He posts on Facebook photos of the trash he gathers, hoping his example will convince people to stop littering.

Kalanyos is an independent tourist guide and runs a souvenir stand close to the citadel. He graduated from the Geography Faculty in Cluj Napoca and also studied the economy of Trade, Tourism and Services at the Alba-Iulia University, Medifax reported. He worked as a tourist guide, then briefly worked as a project engineer before returning to the tourist guide job.

“I believe in the power of example; I think that if I pick up a paper towel or a bag dumped on the pavement, those who see me will think again before dumping things randomly. I’ve been picking up cigarette butts for a long time, especially those in the space between the pavement tiles, where machines can’t clean,” he told Mediafax. He says he likes the space around him to be clean and he has no problem cleaning it himself.

In his Facebook posts, he also counted the cigarette butts he collected at several cleaning rounds, one week apart. He picked up 136 cigarette butts in one round, and 312 in a second one, all around the statue of Mihai Viteazul.

Kalanyos says he has seen more policemen patrolling the area and handing out fines since he has been showing the photos on Facebook. He also explained that he has seen the problem of cigarette butts in other cities in the country, and that it is an issue with the image of the city, which he works to promote.

(Photo: Cristian Kalanyos on Facebook)

editor@romania-insider.com