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World Cleanup Day emerging as biggest civil action initiated by Estonian

BC, Tallinn, 15.08.2018.Print version
The World Cleanup Day taking place on Sept. 15 this year is the biggest civil action organized by Estonians ever, members of the organizing team said LETA.

"This is absolutely the biggest event on Planet Earth organized by Estonians ever," the organizer of the global campaign, Eva Truuverk, said at a press conference on Wednesday.

People from at least 150 countries have promised to join the global call for action that has evolved from the "Let's Do It!" initiative. More than 30,000 people all over the world will be coordinating the action.

"When organizing the World Cleanup Day, we will be tapping into Estonia's three recognized strengths -- our technological capability, the organizing skills of Estonians, and our clean environment," Truuverk added.


In the course of the event, IT solutions developed by Estonians will be used to chart the locations where waste lies, organize the people taking up in the cleanup, and report about the work done.


The World Cleanup Day will get its start in New Zealand, on small Pacific islands and Japan as the say starts and will move on to other times zones.


"The cleanup day will end in Hawaii in the United States, where 30-40 Estonians will be present to conclude the day," the head of the organzing team said.


Of the world's countries with a population of more than a million people, only Morocco, Mali and North Korea will not be taking part,Truuverk said.


Cleanup events will take place also in countries ravaged by war such as Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Ukraine.


"The people there wish to get positive emotions as well," Truuverk said.


She said that a broader goal of the cleanup day, aside from removing waste from the environment, was changing people's attitudes.


"Where in Estonia we have been organizing cleanup days with the aim of making our environment cleaner, in many countries of the world cleansing the environment of waste has much more vital aims -- waste is directly jeopardizing the lives of millions of people," Estonia's Minister of the Environment Siim Kiisler said at the presentation event.


Kiisler has sent a letter to his colleagues all over the world in his capacity as the president of the fourth session of the United Nations Environment Assembly, urging them to support the World Cleanup Day and invite residents in their respective countries to take part in it.


The headquarters of the World Cleanup Day will be located at Tallinn University and the global action will be covered on social media by a 40-strong team led by Estonian television producer Mart Normet.


Organizers of the action have described the 2018 World Cleanup Day as a gift to the world on the occasion of the centennial of the Republic of Estonia.


By now almost 20 miln people in more than a hundred countries have cleaned up their country responding to the "Let's Do It!" initiative launched in Estonia in 2008. The numbers of such people are biggest in Ukraine, 500,000, Bulgaria, 375,000, Albania, 281,000, and Romania and Lithuania, 250,000 each.






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