About 10,000 volunteers will take part in the September 24 great cleanup in the green areas of Chisinau and its suburbs within the cleanup campaign “Hai, Moldova” (“Go, Moldova”). The staffs and private individuals who will want to take part in the cleanup will receive free sacks and gloves for collecting waste at the entrance to parks or recreational areas, IPN reports.
Valeriu Istrati, organizer of the waste collection campaigns in 2011-2012, told a news conference that this year emphasis was laid on the change of perception of the importance of waste that can be processed because this is not only waste. Another component is the education of people so that they do not throw litter in unauthorized places and prevent thus pollution.
The novelty of this year’s campaign is the testing of an application that will enable the volunteers to report places with garbage so that the responsible services could collect it later.
The application allows creating a waste map and was already tested by volunteers in the parks of Chisinau. At practical level, this could be applied later, when clear reporting and intervention mechanisms are set. The volunteers consider that if a positive reaction to such reporting and intervention mechanisms follows, the application can be installed free on the mobile phone and anyone will be able to report where there is garbage in green areas.
The Cleanup Day will continue after September 24 with a civic education campaign for the school students of Chisinau municipality. The volunteers of “Hai, Moldova” will design the conception of an ecology lesson for students, which is to be approved by the Ministry of Education.
In 2011-2012, the cleanup activities involved over 100,000 people from all over the country.