National CleanUp Day

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National CleanUp Day
Ncl logo.png
Observed byNational CleanUp Day is observed globally.
CelebrationsVolunteer to cleanup the country. From Sea to Shining Sea.
Date3rd Saturday in September
FrequencyAnnual

National Clean Up Day is held annually in the United States and globally on the third Saturday of September. In the United States, there are cleanups held in every State and territory. It encourages country-scale organized and individual cleanup events and volunteering to keep the outdoors clean and prevent plastic from entering the ocean. National CleanUp Day is organized by Clean Trails, a non-profit organization founded by Bill Willoughby and Steve Jewett. [1]

Contents

History

The inaugural National CleanUp Day was held in 2017 and had more than 225,000 volunteers. [2] The 2018 event had over 1,500,000 volunteers, 14 million pounds of waste collected and was held in conjunction with the inaugural World Cleanup Day. [3] [4] [5]

The 2019 cleanup received nearly two million volunteers and resulted in the collection of 18 million pounds of waste. [6] The U.S. event was coordinated with World Cleanup Day and saw a combined 20 million volunteers in 170 countries, which is the largest single day global volunteer event. [7] Beginning in 2018, the U.S. Department of Transportation participated in cleanups on their local and interstate highway systems. [8] [9] [10]

In April 2019, Earth Day partnered with National CleanUp Day and Keep America Beautiful for the inaugural Earth Day CleanUp and had over 500,000 volunteers working to clean up trash and litter nationally. [11] [12] Earth Day and presenting partners World CleanUp Day, National CleanUp Day and Keep America Beautiful organized individual activities like Plogging and the TrashTag Challenge. [13]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Earth Day</span> Annual international event on April 22

Earth Day is an annual event on April 22 to demonstrate support for environmental protection. First held on April 22, 1970, it now includes a wide range of events coordinated globally by EARTHDAY.ORG including 1 billion people in more than 193 countries.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Litter</span> Waste products disposed of incorrectly at an inappropriate location

Litter consists of waste products that have been discarded incorrectly, without consent, at an unsuitable location. The word litter can also be used as a verb: to litter means to drop and leave objects, often man-made, such as aluminum cans, paper cups, food wrappers, cardboard boxes or plastic bottles on the ground, and leave them there indefinitely or for other people to dispose of as opposed to disposing of them correctly.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Keep America Beautiful</span> Nonprofit organization

Keep America Beautiful is a nonprofit organization founded in 1953. It is the largest community improvement organization in the United States, with more than 700 state and community-based affiliate organizations and more than 1,000 partner organizations.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Great Pacific garbage patch</span> Gyre of debris in the North Pacific

The Great Pacific garbage patch is a garbage patch, a gyre of marine debris particles, in the central North Pacific Ocean. It is located roughly from 135°W to 155°W and 35°N to 42°N. The collection of plastic and floating trash originates from the Pacific Rim, including countries in Asia, North America, and South America.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Adopt-a-Highway</span> Environmental and promotional campaign

The Adopt-a-Highway program, and the very similar Sponsor-a-Highway, are promotional campaigns undertaken by U.S. states, provinces and territories of Canada, and some national governments outside North America to encourage volunteers to keep a section of a highway free from litter. In exchange for regular litter removal, an organization is allowed to have its name posted on a sign in the section of the highways they maintain.

Ocean Conservancy is a nonprofit environmental advocacy group based in Washington, D.C., United States. The organization seeks to promote healthy and diverse ocean ecosystems, prevent marine pollution, climate change and advocates against practices that threaten oceanic and human life.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Litter in the United States</span> Crime and environmental issue

Litter in the United States is an environmental issue and littering is often a criminal offense, punishable with a fine as set out by statutes in many places. Litter laws, enforcement efforts, and court prosecutions are used to help curtail littering. All three are part of a "comprehensive response to environmental violators", write Epstein and Hammett, researchers for the United States Department of Justice. Littering and dumping laws, found in all fifty United States, appear to take precedence over municipal ordinances in controlling violations and act as public safety, not aesthetic measures. Similar from state-to-state, these laws define who violators are, the type or "function" of the person committing the action, and what items must be littered or dumped to constitute an illegal act. Municipal ordinances and state statutes require a "human action" in committing illegal littering or dumping, for one to be "held in violation." Most states require law enforcement officers or designated, authorized individuals, to "...witness the illegal act to write a citation." Together, prosecutions and punitive fines are important in fighting illegal littering and dumping.

Let's do it 2008 was a large campaign on 3 May 2008, to activate civic society in Estonia in an effort to cleanup the country from litter. It was organized by Let's Do It! World.

Green Up Day, observed annually on the first Saturday of May, is a statewide effort in the US state of Vermont to clean up roadside trash.

Let's Do It World is a global civic organization that started from Estonia, mobilizing people worldwide in joining local, national and regional clean-up events. Among other projects, it is the founder of World Cleanup Day, on which a network of 180 countries, with over 21.2 million participants took place in 2019. First time in 2024 World Cleanup Day mobilises millions in its first year as a UN International Day.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Boyan Slat</span> Dutch inventor and entrepreneur

Boyan Slat is a Dutch inventor and entrepreneur. A former aerospace engineering student, he is the CEO of The Ocean Cleanup.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The Ocean Cleanup</span> Dutch nonprofit that alleviates plastic pollution

The Ocean Cleanup is a nonprofit environmental engineering organization based in the Netherlands that develops technology to extract plastic pollution from the oceans and to capture it in rivers before it can reach the ocean. Their initial focus was on the Pacific Ocean and its garbage patch, and extended to rivers in countries including Indonesia, Guatemala, and the United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">World Cleanup Day</span> World cleanup day

World Cleanup Day is a global social action program aimed at combating the global solid waste problem, including the problem of marine debris. It is held annually on 20 September, and is coordinated by the global organization Let's Do It! World, whose headquarters are located in Tallinn, Estonia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Plogging</span> Picking up litter while jogging

Plogging is a combination of jogging with picking up litter, merging the Swedish verbs plocka upp and jogga (jog) gives the new Swedish verb plogga, from which the word plogging derives. It started as an organized activity in Sweden around 2016 and spread to other countries in 2018, following increased concern about plastic pollution. As a workout, it provides variation in body movements by adding bending, squatting and stretching to the main action of running, hiking, or walking. An estimated 2,000,000 people plog daily in 100 countries and some plogging events have attracted over 3,000,000 participants.

4Ocean is a for-profit company founded in Boca Raton, Florida, in 2017. 4Ocean retails bracelets made from recycled materials, as well as apparel and other merchandise for which the materials are environmentally- and socially responsibly sourced.

Big Blue Ocean Cleanup is an international nonprofit environmental organization with offices in York (UK), Vancouver (Canada), Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia), and Sydney (Australia). It is focused on cleaning beaches and the oceans, protecting wildlife, ocean research and innovative technologies development.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Clean Games</span> Non-profit eco volunteer organization in Russia

Clean Games is a civic organization working with eco-activists to create clean-up events of natural areas. The project offers a gamified way of garbage collecting to engage more people into participation.

We Heart Seattle (WHS), formerly We Heart Downtown Seattle and incorporated as I Heart Downtown Seattle in October 2020, is a volunteer organization responding to trash and homelessness in Seattle. Its founder and executive director is Andrea Suarez, a resident of Seattle's Belltown neighborhood. The group organizes volunteer trash cleanups in public parks in which homeless people have established camps, primarily through a public Facebook group and Facebook events. The group had a short-lived affiliate, We Heart Portland, which performed similar work in Portland, Oregon.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Clean-up (environment)</span> Environmental action to remove litter from a place

A cleanup or clean-up is a form of environmental volunteering where a group of people get together to pick-up and dispose of litter in a designated location. Cleanups can take place on a street, in a neighborhood, at a park, on a water stream, or other public spaces. Cleanup events are often volunteer run. The cleanup volunteers make sure the waste picked-up is disposed of in its appropriate place. Cleanup events are often community-centered and led.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Let's Do It! India</span> Indian non profit organization

Let's Do It! India (LDII) is an International Environmental Organization founded by Pankaj Choudhary in 2016. It has more than 2.2 Million active volunteers all across the country. Let's Do It! India encourages people all across the world to participate in local, governmental, and international cleanup efforts. The foundation is the Indian chapter of Let's Do It! World. It is a section 8 non profit company registered under India's company's act with required 12A and 80G section.

References

  1. "On National Cleanup Day, founders return to Mission Trails Regional Park". ABC 10 News San Diego KGTV. 2023-09-16. Retrieved 2023-12-20.
  2. "Get out your trash bags: Saturday is National Cleanup Day". Spectrum News 1. September 21, 2021. Retrieved December 15, 2022.
  3. "National Cleanup Day: City of Amarillo joins volunteers in cleaning up North Heights". News Channel 10. September 15, 2018. Retrieved November 22, 2021.
  4. "Participate in National Cleanup Day through the Y". Circling the News. September 18, 2018. Retrieved November 22, 2021.
  5. "About Clean Trails - Past Results". cleantrails.org. 26 July 2019. Retrieved 26 July 2019.
  6. "National Clean-Up Day 2020: Be Part of The Solution, Not the Pollution". Plus Printers. Retrieved December 15, 2022.
  7. "Millions of people participate in World Cleanup Day and National Cleanup Day". earthday.org. 24 September 2019. Archived from the original on 11 December 2019. Retrieved 11 December 2019.
  8. "Adopt a Highway volunteers bag a win for Arizona on National CleanUp Day". Arizona Department of Transportation. October 5, 2018. Retrieved July 19, 2021.
  9. "Join National CleanUp Day!". Arizona Department of Transportation. August 11, 2020. Retrieved July 19, 2021.
  10. "Florida Department of Transportation". National CleanUp Day. n.d. Retrieved July 19, 2021.
  11. "We Only Have One Planet. Save It!". Girl Scouts. September 16, 2020. Retrieved May 18, 2020.
  12. "500,000 Volunteers Take Part in Earth Day 2019 Cleanup". earthday.org. 22 July 2019. Retrieved 22 July 2019.
  13. "The Great Global CleanUp - Earth Day 2020". Earth911.com. 25 March 2020. Retrieved 25 March 2020.