From Coast to Coast, organisations and individuals alike join forces to clean up parks, trails, beaches, mountains and open spaces. With volunteers from more than 150 countries participating last year, World Clean-up Day, is the biggest civic action in the world against waste. In 2018 more than 17 million volunteers from 158 countries joined the action against waste, starting in Estonia more than 10 years ago.
The initiator of World Clean-up Day, Let’s Do It Foundation, is a global civic movement with a mission to connect and empower people and organisations around the world for a clean planet. They also aim to unite the global community, raise awareness and implement change to achieve their goal - a clean and healthy planet.
South Africa is one of the 60 countries from the African continent who will be participating in this year’s event. The local plastics industry will once again demonstrate its commitment to cleaning up the environment with the annual Clean-up and Recycle SA Week taking place from 16-21 September 2019.
Clean-up and Recycle SA Week is an initiative by the local plastics industry, supported and endorsed by the various packaging and retail streams and retailers. Each year, close to 120 000 volunteers participate in these clean-up activities that take place along roadsides, rivers, schools, residential and illegal dumping areas.
The initiative is supported by provincial governments, local municipalities, environmental organisations, businesses, schools and communities. In South Africa, recycling remains a low priority even though an average South African produces 0.5kg to 2kgs of waste per day. At the top South Africans have a recycling percentage of 69% for cans and 59% for paper. While glass and plastic linger at the bottom with 25% and the latter with 17%. These numbers illustrate that people continuously need to be reminded of the benefits of recycling. Each year recycling could save enough energy to power 1.4 million homes and reduces water pollutants by 27 047 tons. The South African government also aims to reduce plastic, glass, paper and cans in its landfills by 70% in the next decade.
Communities, businesses, schools, environmental groups and government departments are encouraged to host their own clean-ups in the areas where they work, live or play.
World Cleanup Day Poster 2019 (437 KB)
