Looking back at the month of cleaning up litter

The pioneer route of the Walk of Wisdom ends on the beautiful Waal beaches of Nijmegen. Because a major problem with litter had arisen there, we started the clean Waal campaign a month ago. Below is a report. 

Clean beaches,  but … How long?

After a holiday, I joined in the clean-up last Friday. I walked behind three volunteers and enjoyed what I saw:  sand, stones and greenery. Here and there a cigarette butt or can,  but they disappeared hop into the bag and we walked on a lovely clean beach. On the way back we were overtaken by a group of horses and I suddenly realized what we have achieved with about 80 volunteers: what threatened to become a polluted recreation area is what it used to be: a beautiful piece of nature.

In this way, the Clean Waal campaign has achieved its main goal: clean Waal beaches. It’s nice to discover that it’s also just fun to do: an hour of cleaning up with people you don’t know against the background of the Waal that gently sloshes along. Definitely “no punishment” as someone remarked.

My face changes its expression when I look at the statistics of the action: despite the bad weather and 15 cleanups, we picked up 1 to 3 large bags of garbage every other day. A total of almost 52 bags with 15 cleanups. This leads to the sober conclusion that without volunteers, the beaches will be full of rubbish again. Especially when the sun is shining.

In short: what’s next? As far as I’m concerned, we’ll continue. Less often in autumn and winter, but again next season. We are looking for more people – from 80 to 300, for example – and we are organising fun activities to seduce our fellow citizens to take co-responsibility for a beautiful area. Will you join us?

Yours sincerely, Damien,
chairman of the pilgrimage route Walk of Wisdom, Action clean Waal

Here is a link to the full newsletter with, among other things, a statistic of the action and beautiful Zwerfies: creative photos with a piece of litter that you clean up.