Cleanup Day, Plogging and the like

Degree of effort: low/medium – Level of impact: medium/high

Tasks:

• Don’t drop waste on the ground – just don’t. Yes, cigarette buds are waste as well
• Put waste in rubbish bins in the streets or take it back home
• Get yourself a portable ash tray (in case you smoke)
• Attend a Cleanup Day or do plogging
• Challenge: organize your own Cleanup event or plogging group

Background:

On Saturday, 15th of September, the International Coastal Cleanup Day took place in many countries. Over 30 years ago, this event was started in the United States. https://oceanconservancy.org/trash-free-seas/international-coastal-cleanup/

Thousands of volunteers collect hundreds of tons of trash on beaches and alongside waterways each year. This helps to reduce the huge amount of waste in the seas and saves marine life. For the numbers of the State of California, look here: https://www.ocregister.com/2018/09/17/saturdays-california-coastal-cleanup-sets-record-in-cleaning-beaches-waterways-and-trails/

For some images:

Of course, the collections on this day do not prevent most of the litter from getting into the water, but there is still a massive amount removed. Additionally, I think that this day is very important for making people aware of the issues of marine pollution, waste on land and the negative consequences of e.g. plastic straws. It also helps scientists and actionists to gather knowledge about the origin of the trash in order to be able to prevent future littering.

A similar position is taken by people that adhere to the trend of ‘Plogging’. Plogging was initiated in Sweden, where runners started to collect trash while they were exercising. There is a similar trend for people who just like walking instead of running. There are different plogging groups also in Germany, for example in Cologne, where people add back training to their running by picking up litter. (https://www.deutschlandfunk.de/plogging-muellsammeln-beim-joggen.697.de.html?dram:article_id=414222)

Please leave tell me in the comments what you think about such activities! 🙂 [It’s always possible to comment a post, when you click on the corresponding field below the caption of each post.]

My experience:

In my current home town, Berlin, different Cleanup activities where taking place on Saturday, 15th of September. At the same time, there was a demonstration against unnecessary plastic use.

While many people where cleaning up the Spree (main river here), I was picking up litter with some people from my natural conservation NGO at a channel called ‘Landwehrkanal’. The NGO – NAJU/NABU – has different cleanup activities during the year and regularly participated in the Ocean Cleanup as well: https://www.nabu.de/natur-und-landschaft/aktionen-und-projekte/meere-ohne-plastik/cleanup/index.html and: https://www.trashbusters.de/

In only 2.5 hours, with only 5 people we were actually able to collect a surprisingly huge amount of waste. Most common were lids of beer bottles, cigarette buds and small plastic items such as straws. I suppose that these mainly result from groups of people gathering for drinking and smoking (probably in the evening/at night) in parks and just dropping the ‘small things’. These small items are not insignificant, though! One cigarette bud can pollute a huge amount of fresh water. And in total, they are quite a huge pile of waste.

In fact, cigarette buds comprise the largest amount of waste in the seas!! Most of them reach the sea through rivers and streams: https://www.spektrum.de/news/zigarettenfilter-der-haeufigste-muell-im-meer/1588594

We also found curious things like pairs of shoes and socks, a bicycle lamp, batteries and many others. Despite finding disgusting things, the Cleanup was actually fun 😀

Some people stopped and asked what we were doing and why we were doing it. Some of them encouraged us and thanked us for the initiative. I think we were able to raise some awareness.

Before this day, I had already been ‘plogging’ – before knowing the concept – without equipment. This means that I always picked up big items of litter such as coffee-to-go cups and threw them into the next bin. One day, I found hundreds of batteries, so that I finally messaged the responsible agency for cleaning up public space in Germany (Ordnungsamt), because I could not collect them myself.

I got a very nice response from the responsible person, telling me that they were going to take care of it quickly and that they have huge problems with people littering. It’s really a shame and I still do not know why people are doing this. There are many free collection places for batteries, for example.

Please help to keep our environment clean. Don’t litter, stop people from littering and support cleanup activities!