"Look what we’ve found: a piece of the aeroplane that crashed below Triglav in 1989," shouted a participant in the cleaning action at Triglav Plateaus, while two others carried the remains of an old signpost. Tins made up the bulk of the found "treasures", which weighed 380kg all together.

The cleaning action took place at four locations on the glacier itself, on the ridge between Mali Triglav and Triglav, below Triglav, in the areas around Triglav Lodge at Kredarica and at Snežna konta, an area below Kredarica in the direction of Krma.

"Mountain rescue teams went to check the situation at the most difficult to access locations. We found a few rusty cans, dating from a time when people still had the habit of eating a tin of luncheon meat upon reaching the summit, following which they simply threw the empty tin over the wall. But this was a long time ago," summarised the field report of the Mountain Rescue Service.

There was a quite different picture on the other side, at Snežna konta, where over 10 bags of rubbish were collected and they even asked passers-by to help them carry the bags. "Like we expected, most of the rubbish was from 30 or 40 years ago. Approximately 80-90% were tins, in various forms, there were some juice containers and glass. And we also found some ropes and even gloves, which the wind had probably taken from the hikers." This was how Dušan Prašnikar, the leader of the cleaning action in that area described the situation.

Miha Pavšek (from the Anton Melik Geographical Institute by Research Centre of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts) and his team cleaned the area around the glacier. "There was not a lot of rubbish, but we nevertheless did find some: we found old pole markers, the remains of an aeroplane, pieces of a rope from the ridge, bits of mountaineering equipment, tins etc. We know that there were two aeroplane accidents in the area in the eighties."

The collected rubbish was placed in large cargo bags and a Slovenian Army helicopter transported it to the council dump in Bohinj.

Luka Pušnik from the Triglav Insurance Company, which organised the action "Clean Our Mountains", is pleased to observe that, compared to early years, there is a far higher level of awareness among people. "But we have to be mindful that 20 years ago the mountains were full of garbage because there was a lot of rubbish in the valleys too. The process of raising awareness has started and the mountains are relatively clean today," adds Matej Planko, secretary general of the Alpine Association of Slovenia.