World Cleanup Day marked with a lot of trash
THOUSANDS of volunteers wielding nets and bin bags scoured coasts, parks and riverbanks across the globe on Saturday in a litter-picking drive highlighting the vast quantity of trash dumped worldwide, a day after mass international climate protests.
Campaigners took part in World Cleanup Day from Manila to the Mediterranean a day after hundreds of thousands of people across the world took part in demonstrations and activities calling for urgent action on the environment.
World Cleanup Day is an initiative that has got millions into the streets and cleaning up litter across the globe since it began just over a decade ago.
In France, volunteers posted images of their trash hauls on social media – heaps of assorted waste, soft drink cans and plastic containers.
While the types of trash collected varied, the common material in bin bags across the planet was plastics, underlining the surging concern over the environmental costs of
single-use plastic items and microplastics in world waterways.
Plastics pollution is a major problem across South-east Asia but particularly in the Philippines, which – along with China, Indonesia and Vietnam – is frequently listed among the world’s worst offenders.
In the Philippine capital, some 10,000 people swept across a long stretch of beach by heavily polluted Manila Bay, clutching sacks they filled with rubbish.
“It’s for us to help the environment, especially here in Manila, there’s a lot of garbage,” 20-year-old student Mae Angela Areglado says while picking up rubbish.
“(Plastics are) affecting the marine life because they think that it is food,” she adds.
In the Pacific island nation of Fiji, which is among the countries worst affected by sea level rises and has become a vocal advocate for global climate action, people scour palmfringed beaches west of the capital Suva, heaving up discarded car tyres and engine parts.
On Australia’s famous Bondi beach, activists sift through the sand, carting off bits of plastic and cigarette butts.
The mass cleanup is coordinated annually by the Let’s Do It Foundation, which began life in Estonia. It says that 18 million people from 157 countries participated in the global cleanup day last year. This year, more than 160 countries were scheduled to take part.
“Garbage is a global problem and it affects all the people in the world. It knows no state borders,” the organisation’s president, Heidi Solba, said in a statement.
Mart Normet, leader of the initiative in Estonia, says he draws hope from the enthusiasm of young people.
“When I look at the new photos on Facebook, I can see that the new generation is bringing a completely new attitude. Littering and damaging consumption are a thing of the past,” he says.
In Vietnam’s capital Hanoi, around 1,400 volunteers went searching for litter under the scorching sun.
“Although our actions are very small – like cleaning trash from the sidewalk – it could spread a meaningful message,” 18-year-old Hoang Thi Hoan says, as motorists zip by on a busy street.
A landmark United Nations report to be unveiled next week warns that global warming and pollution are ravaging Earth’s oceans and icy regions in ways that could unleash misery on a global scale.
The World Health Organisation said in August that the level of microplastics in drinking water is not yet dangerous for humans but called for more research into potential future risk and a reduction in plastic waste.
A 2018 UN report said 79% of the plastic ever made has ended up dumped, with little reused or destroyed despite recycling and other initiatives to curb use.