From 18th to the 26th of September, people from 10 countries (Poland, Latvia, Finland, Denmark, Estonia, Lithuania, Sweden, Belarus, Ukraine, and Russia) will compete in waste collecting and sorting. Volunteers will clean green and coastal areas in one hour during the Clean Games Baltic Cup.
“That was a little bit of a wake-up”: Baltic countries have more litter than you may expect
For three years now, Baltic countries have gotten together to participate in the Clean Games Baltic Cup, which has been held annually on World Cleanup Day. The difference from an ordinary cleanup is that participants from different Baltic cities compete in waste collecting and sortin,g and earn game points for the amount of garbage collected.
This year, competitions are going to be held in 10 countries. Poland, Latvia, Finland, Denmark, Estonia, Lithuania, Sweden, Belarus, Ukraine, and Russia are going to compete. The Clean Games Baltic Cup tournaments in Russia are going to be held during the Nordic Weeks festival in Saint Petersburg. The tournament is implemented in partnership with environmental organisations, Clean Baltic Coalition and Latvian Green Movement.
“This tournament became a tradition for us. This will be our third Baltic Clean Cup.”
– says the Clean Games chairman, Dmitry Ioffe.
“We are very glad to see that people from so many places want to participate and even bring their friends and families as their teammates. It is thrilling to see that people actually care about the issue”.
Building a dialogue between youth and older generations about the environment, climate and circular economy
This August C. G. representatives took part in the Regeneration Week summit held by Regeneration 2030, which took place in Åland Islands. The summit’s aim was to build a successful dialogue between youth and older generations (politicians, businessmen) about the environment, climate, and circular economy.
C. G. also managed to hold a cleanup competition there. Alfons Roblom, the Minister of Development, responsible for Environment, Energy, and Housing Issues on Aland Islands, played the game and this is how he commented on the results:
“I haven’t imagined that Mariehamn [a city in Aland Islands] has so much litter. It was very surprising to see the total amount of waste that we have collected during the game. So that was a little bit of a wake-up.”
“We also discovered that usually, cleanups in Europe gather small groups of people, 10-15 average according to activists participating in Regeneration Week. Some of our Baltic Cup organizers are planning to have 50 and even 100 participants in their cities. That’s because we usually involve not only activists but also the local communities. It’s their behaviour affecting the amount of litter around, it’s their behaviour we address with our game format”
– says Anton Zaitsev, Clean Games communication manager.
About the Clean Games
CleanGames have been conducting international tournaments since 2019, when the first Clean Games Baltic Cup became an annual September tradition. In 2020 seven countries took part in the second Baltic Cup, and the organisers are expecting new records in 2021. In 2020, Clean Games also started to cooperate with the USA, and 20 cities from both countries hosted cleaning sections simultaneously during an intercontinental tournament.
Information on the Clean Games project
CleanGames are team competitions in waste collecting and sorting. During games, players use our mobile app, just like Pokémon Go. Since 2014, more than 1500 games have taken place in 24 countries. From 30 to 1500 people take part in one game and collect from 0.5 to 20 tons for an hour. On average, a player collects 5-10 times more waste during Clean Games than during traditional cleanups.
Video-comment from Alfons Roblom
CONTACT DETAILS🔍📧
E-mail1 📧press2@cleangames.ru
Website: https://cleangames.org
E-mail2 📧 zaitsev@cleangames.org
More photos from past events: https://disk.yandex.ru/d/Dc6fql0f5lRfRg/Для%20прессы
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