Let's do it 2008 ( et, Teeme ära 2008) was a large campaign on 3 May 2008, to activate civic society in

Estonia Estonia, formally the Republic of Estonia, is a country by the Baltic Sea in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland across from Finland, to the west by the sea across from Sweden, to the south by Latvia, a ...

in an effort to cleanup the country from litter. It was organized by

Let's Do It! World Let's Do It World is a global civic organization that started from Estonia, mobilizing people worldwide in joining local, national and regional clean-up events. Among other projects, it is the founder of World Cleanup Day, on which a network of ...

Preparation

The litter pickup spots were marked by volunteers beforehand who used mobile phones to record the locations to a mapping system similar to

Google maps Google Maps is a web mapping platform and consumer application offered by Google. It offers satellite imagery, aerial photography, street maps, 360° interactive panoramic views of streets ( Street View), real-time traffic conditions, and rou ...

. locations were recorded in total. Cultural figures, such as

Jaan Tätte Jaan Tätte (born 24 March 1964 in Viljandi Viljandi (, german: Fellin, sv, Fellin) is a town and municipality in southern Estonia with a population of 17,407 in 2019. It is the capital of Viljandi County and is geographically located betw ...

and

Jarek Kasar Jarek Kasar (also known by his stage name Chalice; born 3 April 1983) is an Estonian singer. He started his music career as a rapper Rapping (also rhyming, spitting, emceeing or MCing) is a musical form of vocal delivery that incorporates ...

, helped promote the campaign by participating in televised advertisements. Over partners helped during the cleanup organization process. Volunteers registering to the cleanup were asked to form 3-15 member teams, with each team receiving instructions before the cleanup day via e-mail.

Cleanup

Over people, or approximately 4% of the population of 1.3 million, participated in the cleanup of the forests and countryside. More than tons of garbage were removed from the country's forest in about 5 hours for less than euros. Under normal circumstances it would have taken the government 3 years and 22.5 million euros to accomplish a similar feat. The organization team consisted of

Rainer Nõlvak Rainer Nõlvak (born September 28, 1966) is an Estonian entrepreneur and nature protector who is the chairman of the board of the Estonian Nature Fund. Rainer Nõlvak has advocated for the Estonian energy industry to move away from oil shale and ...

, Toomas Trapido, Kadri Allikmäe, Henri Laupmaa,

Ahti Heinla Ahti Heinla (born 2 May 1972) is an Estonian computer programmer and businessman. He is one of the developers of Skype. He was also an organizer of Let's Do It 2008, a civic action with 50,000 volunteers participating in cleaning up the countr ...

, Eva Truuverk, Tiina Urm, Anneli Ohvril and Jüri-Ott Salm.

Spreading the model

Shortly after the event, Latvia organized a similar nation-wide event every year (). In September 2008, volunteers participated. Lithuania and Latvia organized larger scale events in April 2009 with volunteers. On 17 April 2010 a similar event was organized in Slovenia - ''

Let's Clean Slovenia in One Day! ''Let's Clean Slovenia in One Day!'' ( sl, Očistimo Slovenijo v enem dnevu!; OSVED!) was a Slovenian environmental volunteer project organized by the environmental organization Ecologists Without Borders on 17 April 2010. Its goal was carrying ou ...

'' (''Očistimo slovenijo v enem dnevu'') with 12% of population participating ( volunteers). And again in 2012: ''

Let's Clean Slovenia 2012 ''Let's Clean Slovenia 2012'' ( sl, Očistimo Slovenijo 2012) was a Slovenian environmental volunteering, environmental volunteer project organized by the environmental organization Ecologists Without Borders with the goal of joining 250,000 peopl ...

''. In 2017, the United States held their first National Cleanup Day and joined with

. Worldwide cleanup events eventually led to the international organization

, and the creation of a unified

World Cleanup Day World Cleanup Day is an annual global social action program aimed at combating the global solid waste problem, including the problem of marine debris. It is coordinated by the global organization Let's Do It! World, the headquarters is located i ...

program, and the inaugural World Cleanup Day event in 2018.

References

{{Reflist

External links

Let's Do It World site

News and videos