Every September, volunteers and organisations worldwide join together with one mission, to clean up the world around us!
It’s no secret that rubbish can have a huge impact on the environment – it affects animals and their habitats the world over. I’m sure it’s hard to think of a recent time when you haven’t had to step over broken glass or dodge chewing gum while out and about. This litter is really dangerous for animals; most plastics cannot be digested once eaten. A study even
found that 1 in 3 fish caught for human consumption contained microplastics. The RSPCA also receives at least 10 calls a day about animals affected by litter.
Mounting rubbish and fly-tipping divert public money away from other services into litter picking. Litter also takes a lot of time to degrade, cigarette butts take up to 2 years, and aluminium cans take between 80-100 years. World Clean Up Day aims to change this. Reducing the amount of rubbish around us makes our home a nicer place for our animal friends and us.
So, what can you do to help out this World Clean Up Day?
Take Part!
It seems obvious but getting outside with a bin bag and picking up any rubbish you see makes a huge difference! Almost 48% of people admit to dropping litter, and a whopping 1.3 million pieces of rubbish is dropped onto UK roads every weekend. Even making a small dent in this can hugely affect our surroundings. World Clean Up Day is a great place to start and making litter picking a part of your routine whilst outside is even better!
Encourage others!
ZooLab Mission: Clean Up wants to get as many people involved in their efforts. World Clean Up Day is a great opportunity to join together with those around you and pick up some rubbish! The more people helping to clean up the world around us, the better! Get together with a group of friends, your co-workers, a local dog-walking club – whoever you think would be up for a litter pick in the sunshine. Last year, more than 8.5 million people took part in 191 countries!
Be mindful of waste!
We can also be more mindful of the waste we are producing. By choosing items with recyclable (or no) packaging, we can limit the amount of waste in landfills and our environment. We can also make sure that ourselves and others aren’t littering. 7 out of every 10 items of litter is food packaging or wrappers, so even making sure to take our crisp packets home or finding a bin can have a huge effect
CHALLENGE
Every time you’re out and about, try and pick up at least 10 pieces of litter. Doing this little and often could help to make your area just that bit nicer for everyone. Let us know how you get on in the comments!
World Clean Up Day is on Saturday, 17th September. Head to the World Clean Up Day website for more information on how to get involved and see if any groups are nearby you are participating!