Millions of people from at least 158 countries gathered last weekend in their homelands to clean up their communities. 16 countries postponed their cleanups due to COVID-19 or weather conditions and they will do World Cleanup Day during the next few weeks. This made World Cleanup Day the biggest mobilising live event in 2020.

Countries participating in World Cleanup Day focused on individual and socially distanced group cleanups, collecting cigarette butts, doing digital cleanups, and running sorting-recycling-composting workshops.

“World Cleanup Day 2020 has shown the power of individual and collective strength to stand for a clean and healthy planet. The main force behind World Cleanup Day is the worldwide network of dedicated leaders and teams, acting together under the umbrella of the Let’s Do It World family. It is the core, brain and heart of the World Cleanup Day,” said Heidi Solba, President and the Head of Let’s Do It World Network.

“We are thankful that people all over the world heard us and organised for individual cleanups instead of group cleanups this year. Hereby, I call all the people around the world who participated at World Cleanup Day please register your participation on our webpage,” said Anneli Ohvril, the CEO of Let’s Do It World. “Let’s show the World how many of us care about the environment and want to live in a clean world. Also, we are looking forward to knowing how many cigarette butts were collected during World Cleanup Day,” The aim of the network is to collect 1 billion cigarette butts.

“Cigarette butts are the number one waste type that we pick up during our cleanups. Therefore, one of the focuses of World Cleanup Day this year was to tackle the cigarette butt problem and raise awareness about this issue. Six trillion cigarette butts are produced each year, of which 4.5 trillion end up in nature and contributing to the micro-plastic problem that the world faces today,” explained Ohvril.

“To tackle environmental challenges we have to collect mismanaged waste from nature and also create a well-functioning system where waste is taken as a resource, too. This can be achieved with creating awareness – of the need to produce far less waste, and of necessity to sort the waste. During the World Cleanup Day many countries also ran educational programs, that included webinars and workshops on sorting, recycling, and composting,” said Solba.

Among the millions mobilized, many world leaders also added their contribution. Prince Albert of Monaco with his family did a cleanup on the streets of Monaco. In Belgium, the Prime Minister Mrs. Sophie Wilmes joined a cleanup in Rhode-Saint-Genese. The President of Estonia, Mrs. Kersti Kaljulaid and the Prime Minister of Estonia, Mr. Jüri Ratas both dedicated time to clean public parks from cigarette litter. Many environmental movements, like Earth Day Network and Friday’s For Future, as well as by environment activists, amongst whom Greta Thurnberg participated in World Cleanup Day.

World Cleanup Day 2020 Media and Call centre was hosted by the City Hall of Tallinn, the capital of Republic of Estonia. World Cleanup Day is organized by Let’s Do It World. The organization was born in Estonia in 2008, when 4 percent of the Estonian population came outside to clean the country in one day. Let’s Do It World Headquarters is located in Tallinn, Estonia.

World Cleanup Day was the opening event for United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs) Action Week 2020, lasting from 18th to 26th September.

The global coordination of World Cleanup Day was mainly funded by the Government of the Republic of Estonia.

World Cleanup Day partners with the United Nations Environmental Programme, United Nations Development Programme, UN Habitat, UNESCO, National Olympic Committees of Africa, AIESEC, Earth Day Network, Fridays for Future, Good Deeds Day, JCI, and many others.

World Cleanup Day is also supported by National Foundation of Civil Society, Europark, Pipedrive, Dagcoin, Levercode, Zabod/BBDO, Meedius, Hydroscand, Mapri Ehitus, Telia, DHL, Tahe Outdoors, Sorainen, Ösel Birch, and individual donors around the world.

 

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