On 6 April, Ukliďme Česko (‘Let’s Clean Czechia’) organised its annual Spring Cleaning Day, motivating volunteers to collect litter in hundreds of locations across the country, with participation even higher than usual thanks to the last week’s pleasant spring weather.
During one of the day’s many clean-up operations, at an illegal litter site in Brno-Židenice, volunteers made a surprising and incredible discovery: trilobites fossils, estimated to be between 400 and 500 million years old, dating between the Cambrian and Devonian ages.
Finding this kind of specimen in an illegal waste dump is astounding, but follows the discovery of numerous other such trilobites specimens in the north-east of Brno, in the vicinity of Hady and the Mokrá quarry, by palaeontologist Ivo Chlupáč.
Ukliďme Česko revolves around the work of local volunteers who track illegal dumps in their area and proceed to the cleaning and disposal of the trash through logistical and material support provided by the national organisers. Various local groups are built around teams of colleagues from schools and workplaces, and others are open to anyone interested from the public.
The group organises two big national events every year, during Spring and Autumn, but local clean-ups can take place anytime.
Several hundred clean-up events are still scheduled for the rest of the Spring, mostly next weekend to mark Earth Day (22 April). You can find out about events in your area here.
“From the results of this year so far, the vast majority (approximately 70%) of the organisers state that they found less waste in nature than in the past,” said Ukliďme Česko’s Miroslav Kubásek. “After ten years of organising volunteer cleanups, it seems that we are able to focus increasingly on education and prevention of illegal dump sites and littering. Last year we offered a training program for schools and a calendar of ecological holidays, but above all our application KAMsNIM.cz, which provides reliable information on how to properly dispose of unwanted items and waste, so that people do not throw them into nature out of ignorance.”
