World Cleanup Day
Have you ever walked on the beach and stepped on plastic or litter every few meters? Or walked in the parked and saw people leaving behind rubbish? Have you heard of industrial wastewater leaking into rivers? What are your efforts in reducing waste?
The Netherlands has defined four symbolic actions based on global challenges associated with urbanisation, including: resilient cities, connected cities, feeding cities and greener cities. On World Cleanup Day, the Netherlands addresses polluted water, but also raises awareness for problems regarding too much or too little water.
Our seas and rivers are the lifeline of our cities. And yet, many are polluted by overflowing trash and debris, or at risk of drying up or overflowing Recent floods in China, Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands underline the urgency to take a broader and more significant action towards creating resilient cities around the world.
As an embassy we want to contribute to the goal of cleaner cities and rivers, which is why we ‘walked the walk’ by cleaning up litter in our own environment in light of World Cleanup Day on the 18th of September.
The goal is to give the planet a big cleanup together with more than 180 countries by cleaning up as much litter as possible. We started to walk around our embassy at Naza Tower but we found out the streets around our office are quit clean already: well done residents of KLCC.
However, in other parts of the city there is still work to do. Since most colleagues are working from home, everyone got out to collect litter in their own living environment.
‘It’s astonishing to see so much plastic and packaging materials on the streets. It probably has to do with the fact people order a lot more online. I am definitely guilty of ordering too much online too. Since most stores are closed. I order everything from toys to cleaning products online and the amount of plastic and carton packaging that is used is crazy.’ Berbel, Communications and Public Diplomacy Officer.
Let it be clear that one day of cleaning up is obviously not enough. We have to move towards more resilient and cleaner cities and rivers on a wider scale and improve on sustainability in a lot of different sectors. That is why we have decided to start a ‘cleanup day campaign’ the coming weeks, in which we will highlight businesses, artist and NGO’s that try to make an effort for a ‘cleaner world’. We hope this will inspire you and your business. Stay tuned on our social media channels!