Thessaloniki’s New Year’s celebrations left behind a significant environmental footprint, with municipal services collecting nearly 700 tons of garbage in just 48 hours following New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day festivities.
The bulk of the waste came from the city’s historic center and major arteries, areas that traditionally attract large crowds celebrating outdoors for hours. Street parties, food grilling and nonstop revelry transformed central Thessaloniki into a massive celebration zone, but once the music stopped it turned into the city’s biggest cleanup challenge.
To meet the demand, the municipality’s cleanliness and recycling services mobilized all available reserve vehicles and drivers, working intensively so the city could return to normal within hours. Additional personnel were brought in to reinforce morning and afternoon shifts, particularly to clear overflowing street bins filled with small, discarded items left behind by partygoers.
New Year’s Eve posed the greatest logistical difficulty. The density of crowds made access to central areas nearly impossible, even for sanitation workers on foot. Cleanup crews waited until celebrations ended before moving in — a strategy also followed at the city’s main official New Year’s event on the waterfront, where workers remained on standby until the early morning hours before beginning their work.
City officials noted that this year’s New Year cleanup was significantly heavier than during Christmas, when rainfall limited outdoor festivities and reduced waste volumes.
“We responded to intense pressure, especially on New Year’s Eve, when multiple areas needed to be cleaned at the same time,” the city’s deputy mayor responsible for cleanliness and recycling said, adding that crews continue their work to ensure public spaces remain safe and presentable.
Authorities estimate that around 60% of the total waste collected during the two-day operation originated from the city center and other high-activity areas — a figure that reflects both Thessaloniki’s reputation as a city that celebrates enthusiastically and the scale of effort required to support those celebrations.
