World Clean Up Day 2020
This year World Clean Up Day falls on Saturday 19th September and will see 180 countries uniting across the world to clean up the planet in one single day. The movement began in Estonia in 2008 and in the first year they managed to co-ordinate 50,000 people to clean up the country from trash in just five hours.
Twelve years later and the global movement is still growing, with numbers reaching 21 million volunteers coming together across the globe to show their unity and shared beliefs that our planet needs our help. Last year in 2019 volunteers who care about the environment came together to help clear up litter, plastic pollution and mismanaged waste from rivers, towns, forests and beaches.
World Cleanup Day harnesses the power of people around the world to achieve incredible things by coming together. Its beauty lies in cooperation and collaboration: building bridges between disparate communities, including all levels of society – from citizens to business, to government.
Driven by the organisation ‘Let’s Do It World’, the unity of over 150 countries is coordinated and guided by leaders in each country who head up teams of their own to mobilise and encourage participation. Many are volunteers working day and night to address the issues that are most pressing for them. LDIW provides guidance, advice and leadership skills for anyone willing to commit time to the cause. The incredible people leading these 180 countries are nothing short of being heroes of our time.
It seems that it has taken David Attenborough, Greta Thunberg and brutal images of birds and turtles strangled by plastic, to wake up to what’s surrounding us. So instead of feeling helpless, we can all do our small part. Getting involved in World Clean Up day means positive collaboration, the spirit of unity and most importantly, getting something done for the planet and the realization that we need planet Earth with its resources more than it needs us.
Let’s Do It World has five main features it relies on:
- Cooperation: we are open to individuals and organizations from the public sector, corporations and civil society who believe that waste does not belong in nature. “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.”
- Positivity: we look for solutions, instead of pointing fingers. We focus on creating positive change and on finding solutions to “trash blindness”.
- Leadership – changes happen in people and through people. Anyone can be a leader and develop as a leader. We are looking to empower a new generation of leaders that aims to create a waste-free world by working locally and cooperating globally.
- Technology: we are adding smart tech and engineering ingenuity to motivated volunteer power.
- Fun: mobilizing millions of people around the world to clean their communities and have fun while doing it is instrumental to the solution and to the effort to keep our planet clean.
This year the Eco Passion team has organised a beach clean-up in our local area of Casares Costa (check our Facebook event page for details).
Why don’t you find out if there is a clean up planned near you?
Here are some useful resources and links:
https://www.worldcleanupday.org/about/
https://letsdoitspain.org/