Environmental Events 2018: What is World Cleanup Day?

As we near the end of 2018, we’re taking a look back at the most influential environmental events of the year. If you haven’t already, make sure you check out our previous post about the oldest environmental event – Earth Day.

In this post, we’re going to take a look at World Cleanup Day, an international event taking place in 158 countries.

Let’s Do It! World

World Cleanup Day was founded and brought to us by Let’s Do It! World, a civic-led mass movement that started on September 15^th 2008. The movement began in Estonia, when 50,000 residents came together to clean the whole country of illegally dumped waste in under 5 hours.

Fast forward a decade and 17 million people in 158 countries took part in World Cleanup Day 2018, making it the biggest positive civic action the world has ever seen.

Getting involved

Getting involved with World Cleanup Day 2019 couldn’t be easier. Simply download the app, which lists some of the organised events and search for an event near you. If you’re struggling to find an event near you, just organise your own. You can add an event in the app or contact your country’s Cleanup team to get started.

Want to contribute without becoming an organiser? No problem. With the World Cleanup app, you can identify areas on a map that you think need cleaning up. When out and about in your local neighbourhood, you may spot areas that are heavily littered. Simply log onto the map and mark the area that you’re in to let others know.

What’s next?

17 million people across the world coming together to clean up the earth seems like a huge impact, right? Well, it is. It’s the biggest clean up to date. But, unfortunately, it’s just not enough. Clean ups are just the start of the journey towards a cleaner planet. To truly experience a clean and waste-free world, we need to make a vital change across society. While the clean ups are important, without real change, the world will continue to become more polluted and damaged.

That’s where the Keep It Clean Plan comes in. Let’s Do It! World’s plan includes short-term, long-term, global and local actions for individual people and international organisations.

Plastic pollution isn’t the only environmental concern we need to be worried about. Climate change is an ever-growing environmental issue that is becoming more and more apparent in society. One of the leading causes of climate change is the meat consumption of our planet.

Our next post will cover World Vegan Day, an international event raising awareness of the harm meat-eating is doing to our planet. Alternatively, take a look at the article ‘CTG Sea Sentry washwater monitor installed on scrubber retrofit in China’.