Augsburg’s municipal waste management company organizes an annual clean-up campaign called “Clean is trend” (German “Sauber ist in”).
Littering is a global problem. Besides preventative measures to avoid waste, corrective measures like clean-up actions are needed to handle this type of pollution to the environment.
Many different regional solutions to fight against littering exist. For instance, Augsburg’s municipal waste management company called AWS organizes an annual clean-up campaign called “Clean is trend” for more than 15 years.
The campaign started in single city districts in 2005 and was expended to the entire city in 2011. Since 2013, a creative competition is part of the campaign and since 2015, the EU campaign “Let’s Clean Up Europe” is officially supported.
The clean-up campaign is very successful, also because the organiser AWS has some great offers in place. They provide appropriate gloves for kids, youth and adults as well as buckets, tongs and rubbish bags to the participants of the clean-up campaign. In addition, the collected waste will be picked up by the garbage trucks at a place agreed on. This is a very convenient offer to the volunteers who pick up the garbage.
Each waste collection activity should be registered on the AWS homepage. Groups or individuals can participate and different age groups are represented. Many kindergartens, schools, companies and associations are among the participants.
The campaign usually ends with a big closing event where the so-called “creativity awards” and “clean awards” are handed out. Many children are usually attending this event.
Resources needed
The main resources needed for this good practice are human resources in the form of working hours by the AWS employees who are organising the campaign. Material expenses are very small (e.g., for buying equipment provided to the participants like gloves).
Evidence of success
In 2019, 4.800 people participated in the campaign. The number of participants increases each year, e.g., around 700 people registered in 2011.
This increase reflects the rising awareness on the topic of littering as well as on the campaign itself. Due to the covid-19 pandemic, the campaign could not take place in 2020.
The waste which was collected in 2019 during the campaign measured a volume of 88 m3. This equals the filling quantity of 3.260 littering bins – a very impressive figure!
Potential for learning or transfer
The potential for learning and transfer is assessed as high.
Existing clean-up campaigns might learn from this example, e.g., the offer that the collected waste is picked up at any place in the city agreed on or the award ceremony.
Implementing clean-up campaigns is of interest to almost all regions, as the problem of litter carelessly thrown away into the landscape is omnipresent.
In many cases, these campaigns are organised by NGOs. However, this good practice by the city of Augsburg shows that also the local policy level can implement such campaigns and therefore can act as a role model. Municipal waste management companies (owned by cities) are the right bodies for organising such clean-up campaigns.
Tags: Education, Environment, Event, Plastics, Pollution, Waste
