Volunteers will be cleaning up nature on Saturday 18 September, as the Czech Republic participates in the global clean-up event World Cleanup Day. Around 300 cleanups are planned for Saturday, with more to take place on Sunday or other days. Representatives of the Clean Up the Czech Republic association and Environment Minister Richard Brabec (ANO) told journalists today.
Those interested in joining the clean-up can find an overview of the planned events on the website. For example, the Dyje and Svratka rivers will be cleaned. In Hořovice, Dobříš and Česká Kamenice, volunteers will combine cleaning with running.
Traditional clean-up events are regularly held in the Czech Republic in spring. This year and last year, however, mass actions were limited due to anti-epidemic measures. While more than 150,000 volunteers took part in the clean-up before the covid-19 epidemic in 2019, collecting more than 2,500 tonnes of waste, this year, the turnout was less than a third of that, with about 827 tonnes of garbage collected. According to Radek Janoušek from Ukliďme Česko, school clean-up events were mainly missing due to school closures.
According to Minister Brabec, spring events alone are not enough to clean up nature. Due to reduced travel and the closure of many services and shops during the epidemic, people went out into the countryside more and left more rubbish behind. That is why the ministry launched the campaign No Wildlife Like Wildlife, aimed at visitors to the countryside back in the summer. “I will be happy for people to take from it a simple rule for their everyday lives – what I bring to the countryside, I take away,” said the Minister.