More than 9,000 Amsterdammers took to the streets on Friday in a community clean-up day aimed at ridding the city of its litter-dropping habits.
Project leader Kor van der Bij, of the Rubbiz foundation, told Dutch News that the effort was bigger than ever after a businessman’s LinkedIn post about the filthy city went viral.
“It started as a pilot with the Rijkswaterstaat infrastructure agency in 2021, with the idea of trying to get cities involved in a mass clean-up,” he said. “The idea is to raise awareness but also make an impact for people who don’t get involved, to give a signal that almost everyone wants a clean environment.”
After further trials in Hilversum and Tiel, he said, Amsterdam is the biggest event so far and volunteers were up delivering rubbish bags and pickers to volunteer groups until 1.30am on Thursday night. It was so popular that they had to close registrations at a certain point, he said.
After the post from businessman Victor Knaap went viral, he was approached and joined the initiative to promote the clean up day.
“There is a lot of frustration with the problem in Amsterdam, and people really want to do something about it,” added Van der Bij. “A post that got a lot of attention from the business world really helped.”
The day was launched during an event with schools, councillors and influencers in Amsterdam Noord in the morning and neighbourhood initiatives were planned throughout the day. Van der Bij said that while the council could do more to clean up, and businesses more aware of packaging, at the end of the day it is up to the people.
Earlier this week, Amsterdam announced a “bin offensive”, removing bins in litter hotspots to encourage people to take their rubbish home and stop people opening them in search of bottles and cans with deposits.
“You keep your own house nice and tidy,” he said. “And if you have a connection with the neighbourhood where you live, you clean that up a bit too. It starts with connection, talking to each other, and doing something together.”
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