On 10 May 2014, volunteers from around Europe will get together and help clear up litter and abandoned waste in their area, as a part of the European Week for Waste Reduction’s (EWWR) ‘Let's Clean Up Europe!’ (LCUE) day of action.
The LCUE campaign calls on local institutions, voluntary associations, schools, and the general public, to organise waste collection activities in their area on 10 May (although activites can run until 17 May).
It asks volunteers to focus waste picking activities at a nature site or town that has been polluted by ‘illegal dumping’, or at coasts, and river or lake sides that are affected by ‘washed-up waste’.
The main aim of the campaign, which is being coordinated within the EWWR by the International Association for Environmental Communication (IECA), and with the support of European Commissioner for the Environment Janez Potočnik, is to ‘fight against littering and waste abandonment’.
How to register
To set up a ‘clean-up’ action for LCUE, participants will have to register with the coordinator covering the place where the action will be implemented (the registration form with a list of contact points divided by member states can be found on the campaign website). Organisations ‘of all kinds’ are invited to contribute.
Participants are then advised to set up a ‘team’, find support and promote their activity.
After teams have collected and sorted their litter (in particular glass and hazardous waste), they are urged to send feedback as well as pictures and videos of their cleanup activity to their coordinator.
There are no obligations with regards to the cleanup methods chosen and volunteers are encouraged to be ‘creative’.
So far, 15 EU member states have agreed to participate in LCUE, including the UK, France, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Spain, Sweden, and the Netherlands. In addition, Andorra, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Norway, Serbia and Turkey have also registered to participate.
‘We all want to live in clean neighbourhoods’
Speaking of LCUE, Environment Commissioner Janez Potočnik said: "Civic cleanup movements are growing across Europe, and we want to make them feel part of a European event.
“We have put together a network of national contact points in 21 countries to let people know what is going on in their neighbourhood, and what they can do to help. It's a hands-on initiative, so let's get our boots and gloves on. We all want to live in clean neighbourhoods, so together Let's Clean Up Europe."
Find out more about Let's Clean Up Europe!
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