The Czech Republic and Croatia are cleaning up their countries from illegal waste with the help of tens of thousands of volunteers on the 18th of April in the framework of the civic led global movement Lets Do It! World Cleanup 2015.
The Czechs joined the global movement in 2014 and are aiming for bigger and better results each year they have created an online system for registering cleanups and mapping illegal waste in order to help to co-ordinate the cleanups more efficiently. After the waste mapping system was ready the programmers realised that somebody should also clean those mapped illegal dumpsites up. This is when the IT guys decided to start coordinating a national cleanup action.
Already 750 cleanups have been registered and 5000 illegal dumpsites reported so far via the interactive online-maps that are designed especially for Uklime esko, says Miroslav Kubsek, the team leader of Lets Do It! Czech Republic.
5000 illegal dumpsites is probably only a fraction of the total amount of illegal dumps in the country. I estimate that the total number is at least 10 times greater. If we would want to clean up all of them, we would have to organise at least one cleaning action in every village and town in one day, involving more than 100,000 volunteers, which is about 1% of the population of the Czech Republic, Kubsek admits.
In Croatia, about 42,000 volunteers cleaned up their country in 2012. In 2013 the number was 50,000 and last year 52,000 people picked up waste in different places around Croatia.
The main goal of this years cleanup is to tackle illegally disposed of waste throughout Croatia, but also to raise awareness in several areas related to waste and the importance of proper waste management.
The international network of Lets Do It! clean up campaigns aims to solve the illegal dumping problem on a local and global level both short and long term by engaging a large part of the society in the cleanup activity on an action day, raising the issues related to illegal dumping and engaging both experts, political and local leaders to find more sustainable systemic solutions. The movement began in Estonia in 2008 when 50,000 people came together and cleaned up their entire country in five hours, removing 10,000 tonnes of waste. Today, Lets Do It! is a global network of 112 countries, having engaged 11,2 million participants.
The countries participating in Lets Do It! actionscan be seen here:www.letsdoitworld.org/countriesandupcoming cleanup dates can be seen here:www.letsdoitworld.org/cleanup_dates_2015.
Lets Do It! World Cleanup 2015 is supported by bytheEstonian Ministry of Foreign Affairsfrom theDevelopment Cooperation and Humanitarian Aid fund,the Estonian Ministry of Environment, the Open Estonia Foundation, Skype, Carlson Rezidor Hotel Group, QlikView, Tallink Group, DHL Estonia, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Estonian Air, Interlex Translations, Meedius Estonia, Sendsmaily and EuroPark Estonia.
More information on the global movement:
Meelika Hirmo
Lets Do It! World Cleanup 2015
Head of Public Relations & Communication
Phone: +372 504 1258
E-mail:[emailprotected]
Homepage:https://www.letsdoitworld.org
Facebook:http://www.facebook.com/letsdoitworld
Twitter:http://www.twitter.com/letsdoitworld
Youtube:http://www.youtube.com/user/Letsdoitworld
Croatia
Helena Traub
Team leader of Lets Do It! Croatia (Zelena istka)
Phone: +385 95 89 33 707
E-mail: [emailprotected]
Homepage: http://www.zelena-cistka.org/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ZelenaCistka
Twitter: https://twitter.com/ZelenaCistka
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/ZelenaCistka
Czech Republic
Miroslav Kubsek
Team leader of Lets Do It! Czech Republic (Uklime esko)
Phone: +420 777 176 674
E-mail: [emailprotected]
Homepage: http://www.uklidmecesko.cz
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/UklidmeCesko