Volunteers in India collect trash at the end of their cleanup.
The Great Global Cleanup is exactly what it sounds like. But organizers are aiming to make it more inclusive this Earth Day with a “brand check” and related attempts at two apparent world records.
Earth Day falls on April 22. The Great Global Purge turns five.
EarthDay.org, the worldwide event organizer, plans to register 5,000 cleanups before the green holidays. Cleanings will take place throughout the month.
Three of the largest or flagship events for the Great Global Cleanup are planned for Malaysia, Armenia and Hawaii.
In Malaysia, with his help Malaysian Humanitarian Foundationorganizers plan to mobilize more than 100,000 volunteers for a clean-up event and plant 1 million trees from April 19-23.
It’s believed that more than 100,000 volunteers and 1 million trees would set two world records, says Michael Karapetian, Great Global Cleanup coordinator based in Tampa, Florida.
Around the world, about 2,000 cleanups have been recorded so far, including in all 50 US states. The goal of 5,000 events is typical of the Great Global Cleanup, and EarthDay.org hopes to have 192 countries represented this year, just like last year.
Cleanups range from huge ones like flagship events to smaller projects involving communities, neighborhoods, streets and friends.
Anyone can enter a liquidation.
“We like to call it the gateway drug to the environmental movement, because it’s easy to do, you don’t need anything but your hands,” although gloves and bags are encouraged, Karapetian says.
“It’s very easy to get involved. What we’re finding is that once people start doing cleanups, they start to realize how bad the situation is.”
This situation has a lot to do with plastic pollution, and this year’s Earth Day events coincide with advocating for a Global Plastics Treaty that includes a 60% reduction in plastic production by 2040.
EarthDay.org will publish calendar updates from the treaty negotiations, which will then take place in Ottawa, Ontario, immediately after Earth Day.
As for world records: What is the largest cleaning event ever? And the most trees planted in five days?
The Guinness World Record records the largest annual international coastal cleaning project as the Ocean Conservancy’s International Coastal Cleanup on September 21, 2019, with more than 940,000 volunteers from 116 countries. The most trees were planted in 24 hours from one group in one location equaled 847,275 in 2013, according to the agency.
Either way, the Great Global Cleanup remains ambitious, organizers say, with this year’s plans for Malaysia.
In its first four years, volunteers in the Great Global Cleanup removed a total of 160 million pounds of trash, the group says.
Cleaning volunteers in the UAE pick up trash from a beach.
This year, cleanup leaders will also begin recording brands they find on beaches, along roads and elsewhere.
They call it “trash as evidence.” Groups and others doing registered cleanups for the big global event will be asked to take the extra step of sorting and cataloging plastics by brand.
“The whole idea is to be able to create this garbage data and then open up that dialogue with companies to make real change,” says Karapetian. New York sues PepsiCo Inc. for single-use plastics found along the Buffalo River, for example.
If a company’s name is on a piece of plastic, he argues, that company should help figure out how to solve the problem of plastic pollution, with or without a treaty.
“We have to turn off this faucet. If we don’t get this reduction, we’ll be cleaning for the rest of our lives.”
