environment
Signs against littering – Stuttgart as the focus of action
Volunteers collect tons of trash on World Cleanup Days. photo
© Franziska Kraufmann/dpa
Things are being cleaned up again: Thousands of people all over Germany are collecting rubbish on the streets, in parks or in the woods. There is a lot to be found, from crown caps to cigarette butts.
Thousands of people all over Germany volunteered on Saturday to take a stand against the littering of the earth. On “World Cleanup Day” (in German: World Cleanup Day) people in – according to the organizers – 190 countries free streets, parks, beaches, forests, rivers, shores and seas of waste and plastic waste. Cigarette butts and bottle caps are picked up and playgrounds are cleaned.
The central German city of the waste collection campaign was Stuttgart this time. The core team of the German organization sent an official message from Germany to the international teams via video stream at noon.
The organizers were surprised by the lively participation in Stuttgart, despite the initially bad weather. “Many people understand that something has to change for a clean, healthy and plastic waste-free future,” said initiator Holger Holland of the German Press Agency. He spoke of 5,000 campaigns nationwide and around 300,000 participants. Experience has shown that each of them collects 2.6 kilos of garbage, Holland said – more than half of which is mostly plastic and plastic waste.