For the last three years, one autumn day has been designated as “World Cleanup Day”. This year, that day will be September 19th, and Czech organizers Uklid’me Česko have organized a cleanup event for residents of the Czech Republic to help clean up the country and the world. Photo: Courtesy of Uklid’me Česko.
Czech Rep., Aug 21 (BD) – The third annual world cleanup day will be celebrated on September 19th, and will be focused on cigarette butts. Since the first official global event in 2018, Uklid’me Česko [“Let’s Clean Up the Czech Republic”] has been organizing national events every autumn to harmonize the efforts of Czech residents participating in the international cleanup day, in addition to their spring cleaning events, which have been held every year since 2014.
Due to the corona pandemic, the spring event had to be cancelled this year, after what Uklid’me Česko described as record interest, with 2,500 local cleaning events registered. Individuals still went out to clean, wearing facemasks, but according to the organisers, “that could not replace the combined efforts of associations, municipalities, companies, schools and other collectives.”
The autumn edition, however, is all set to go ahead on September 19th, with 500 local events planned so far, of which eight are in Brno. According to Uklid’me Česko, the upcoming cleanup is even more necessary than ever, thanks to a “corona tourist season,” during which “undisciplined tourists left behind a lot of packaging from snacks and paper handkerchiefs,” made worse due to the temporary closure of waste collection centers.
The main focus of this year’s cleanup day is cigarette butts, which the organizers say are the most common form of litter in the world, with 300kg of butts dropped every second. “It is not our aim to collect all cigarette butts as part of these volunteer cleaning events, that would be a superhuman task,” said Miroslav Kubásek, the chief coordinator of the World Cleanup Day for the Czech Republic. “However, we want to draw attention to the problem of throwing them on the floor, the bad habit of many smokers, and, by means of enlightenment, at least reduce the amount of cigarette butts that end up in the environment as much as possible.” According to Kubásek, cigarette butts are mostly made of plastic, and take about 15 years to decompose.
This year, Uklid’me Česko is also cooperating with the “Bez Kempu” project for the autumn cleanup event, which will allow volunteers to sleep for free at one of the campsites it has provided throughout the Czech Republic, and clean up the nearby area. You can find information on the location of the campsites and the planned events at the map overview here.
For more information about the event or on how you can support or join the cleanup events, visit Uklid’me Česko’s website.
