Earth Day Network launches Great Global Cleanup

In collaboration with partners across globe, Earth Day Network, Washington, is building the largest nationally coordinated environmental cleanup in honor of Earth Day.

The Great Global Cleanup is a worldwide campaign to remove billions of pieces of trash from neighborhoods, beaches, rivers, lakes, trails and parks, reducing waste and plastic pollution, improving habitats and preventing harm to wildlife and humans.

The cleanup will take place in 13 cities across the U.S., with events planned April 27 in Anchorage, Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Honolulu, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, Richmond, San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle and Washington.

“The Great Global Cleanup will bring together millions of people around the globe to create the largest coordinated volunteer event in history,” says Earth Day Network President Kathleen Rogers.

Volunteers organized a coastal cleanup April 11 at the Brooklyn Bridge Park, New York, as part of the global event. At the end of the session, bags of trash were weighed. Straws and plastic water bottles were the most commonly found items.

“Last year we had our most successful cleanup year yet, with over 2,500 pounds of trash collected,” volunteer coordinator Elizabeth Harnett says.

With approximately 25 locations in each city and more than 300 total cleanup events, the Earth Day 2019 cleanup aims to inspire volunteerism and achieve tangible impacts on waste in our environments, the organization says. The unified campaign includes mobile registration, digital mapping, social media, photo sharing, corporate volunteer engagement and data collection on cleanup results.

Building on best practices and verifiable metrics from 2019, the Great Global Cleanup will then be scaled up for the 50th anniversary of Earth Day in 2020, with more than 100,000 events globally and one billion pieces of trash collected.

“We are excited to kick off in cities across the U.S. in 2019, and to expand globally in 2020 in honor of the 50th anniversary of Earth Day,” Rogers says.