World Cleanup Day takes place each year on the 20th of September, bringing together over 114 million participants from across the globe. People are encouraged to get involved with World Cleanup Day by starting their own cleanup or joining one near them.
Since 2024, World Cleanup Day is now an official UN Day, held on 20 September each year, and is now on the official Calendar of International Days and Weeks. World Cleanup Day is an annual global social action program that began in an attempt to combat the global waste crisis, including the problem of marine debris and plastic in our oceans. Coordinated by the Let’s Do It World NGO, a global organisation with headquarters in Estonia, there are now hundreds of cleanups organised across the world for World Cleanup Day.
The mission and vision of World Cleanup Day is to create a healthy, waste-free world while empowering individuals, communities, organisations, and governments to drive sustainable change in waste management practices and cross-sector cooperation through collective action.
You can participate as a cleanup organiser, join in with an already-organised local event, or both. All you need to get started is a pair of gloves, a few bin bags, and maybe a litter picker for ease, and you’re good to go! Cleaning up your local area can be a good way to tidy up your community and meet new people while you do your bit for the planet.
If you’re taking part in the planned cleanup in and around Manchester, don’t forget, you can bring any scrap metal to Singletons, and you might even get some money for it! While most of the waste you’ll be bagging up will be made of non-recyclable plastic, tinned food cans, beer cans, and any scrap metal should be recycled.
Every local area has different rules and regulations around what you should do with the waste you collect. If you do plan to collect a large amount of litter, please have a chat with your local authority before World Cleanup Day to find out what you should do with it.
Where possible, you should separate the litter you find into separate bags so that as much waste as possible can be recycled:
- Plastics
- Aluminium cans/metal
- General waste
- Hazardous waste electronics (WEEE) such as vapes
If you come across any vapes, please keep them separate during your cleanup – put them in a separate plastic bag or box. You can find specialist locations that recycle WEEE, or there are often battery bins at recycling centres where you can drop them off to be disposed of safely.
If you’d like to know more about World Cleanup Day or organise your own cleanup, you can join now. If you’ve already been out in your local area collecting scrap metal or litter picking, you can bring any metals to Singletons for us to value. If you’d like to know more about what we can and can’t recycle, contact us today!
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