Eco-solutions: World Cleaning Day unites 377,000 Ukrainians, collecting over 68,000 tons of garbage

This year, the all-Ukrainian toloka [collective clean-up ed.] took place in 24 regions, and about 377,000 people participated. In total, Ukrainians managed to collect more than 68 tons of garbage.

The organizers of the cleaning from the Let's Do It Ukraine organization announced that at Ukrinform's press conference.

The toloka organizers also mentioned that, in addition to the 68 tons of garbage collected, they could donate 120 tons of recyclable materials.

"The most frequently encountered types of litter were cigarette butts, bottles, packaging, wrappers, bags, glass, paper, and organic waste. In the forests, trash such as toilets, sofas, old washing machines, car batteries, telephone parts, toys, chandeliers, and shoes were discovered. Many tourists leave behind a significant amount of garbage in recreational areas," the head of Let's Do It Ukraine, Yuliia Markhel, said.

Let's Do It Ukraine considers cigarette butts littering various locations to be a separate problem.

"Dear smokers, do not leave your cigarette butts in the open air. They can take over 13 years to decompose and do not biodegrade in the rain. The fumes harm our health, especially for young children exposed to them under the sun, near water, or in the sand. This increases the risk of cancer cell growth.

They were born that way and live in a challenging and terrible world. This affects not only health but also nature, flora, and fauna and also causes fires. Bring your cigarette butts to the dustbin at least," Markhel addressed the smokers.

The leader of the public organization is confident that Ukraine's international ranking could significantly improve if all participants in this year's cleanup register. As a result, the registration deadline has been extended until October 20.

"This is a preliminary result [the number of participants — ed.] because we will recalculate it in a month and give a new one. This figure may change if everyone participating in the World Cleaning Day-2024 registers. This figure may significantly change the place of Ukraine in the world ranking of ecologically responsible and eco-change-ready countries," Markhel stressed.

At the same time, she added that Ukraine expects to enter the top ten "cleanest" countries.

Today, the top three in terms of the most significant number of participants looks like this:

• Dnipropetrovsk region — 22,534.
• Chernihiv region — 16,985.
• Lviv region — 15,980.

Digital cleaning

In the frontline regions, 176,038 eco-conscious citizens were able to participate in digital cleaning, which involves removing unused, outdated, and unnecessary programs, files, and web pages.

In total, people have removed 2,017,549 gigabytes of digital trash. The organizers report that thanks to this, they saved 1,008,774 kWh of energy per year and 504,387 kg of CO2 emissions.

The highest number of individuals took part in digital cleaning in the following regions:

• Rivne had 46,339 participants,

• Poltava had 26,848 participants,

• and Vinnytsia had 14,277 participants.

For reference:

Let's Do It Ukraine is a youth movement that is a part of Let's Do It World, a global movement connecting over 90 million activists from 211 countries. These activists come together every year on the third Saturday of September to clean up their respective countries.

Since 2024, World Cleaning Day has been declared an official UN Day, celebrated annually on September 20, and added to the international days and weeks calendar.

World Cleanup Day has become the world's most extensive mobilizing peaceful action and won the UN SDG Awards rating.