Globally, people are always looking for different ways to help the environment. A trend that has picked up pace in recent years is big group cleanups. Ordinary people find somewhere that’s in need of cleanup, choose a date and time to come to collect all the trash and advertise it online for people to join them. For example, every year in September an Estonian organization called Let’s Do It World organizes World Cleanup Day. This project sees volunteers from 191 countries come together to clean up their local areas. An estimated 25 million people took part in World Cleanup Day last year.
Has this trend reached Taiwan yet? Many different climate trends haven’t been well received in Taiwan, such as the school strikes for the climate started by Greta Thunberg. These student strikes caused a splash in most countries around the world except for Taiwan. Luckily, The trash picking movement hasn’t followed the same course. In Taiwan, there are actually a number of different organizations and movements that have been organizing similar events for years.
The Society of Wilderness based in Hsinchu often organizes beach cleanups as part of a global International Coastal Cleanup. The volunteers not only spend hours picking up trash from the coast, but also keep a record of everything they pick up to figure out its source. The records then get sent back to an Ocean Conservancy organization to analyze for their annual reports. In the past, these figures have shown interesting results, such as that the fishing industry produces around 14% of ocean trash.
Another similar organization is called Taiwan National Cleanup. They’re organizing a cleanup day on the 28th May. The event will see cleanup groups heading to 24 different areas to clean up and documenting it on social media to raise awareness for plastic pollution and the fishing industry. The main focus of these cleanup events in Taiwan are on forests and beaches. Taiwan’s cities and residential areas are actually quite clean in comparison to most countries around the world, thanks to general cultural attitudes towards trash. Taiwan’s Waste Disposal Act in 1988 and the schemes that followed it made people pay for household waste and removed most public bins on the streets. Instead of increasing the amount of littering in Taiwan’s cities and towns, most people reduced the amount of trash they generated, and carried it home to recycle. Littering can carry a fine of up to NTD$6,000 or just over US$200. If people report someone else for serious littering, they can receive 75% of the fine as a reward, meaning littering is taken seriously.
The same can’t be said of Taiwan’s beaches however. Lots of plastic waste and industrial waste drifts onto shore every day and poses a threat to marine life, as well as being an eyesore. A 2018 study from Greenpeace found that Taiwan’s dirtiest coasts could be found in New Taipei’s Reuifang District. The trash there at the time of the survey was enough to fill 210 90-liter bags, mainly consisting of plastic bottles and fishing gear.
Taiwan’s big cleanup events attract large numbers of people, and are more than just a cleanup exercise. They often also feature musical performances to spur people on in their cleanups, as well as surfing and other water activities at the beach cleanups. Sometimes the events can become political though. In October of 2019, the presidential candidate for Taiwan’s opposition party, the GMD was planning to do a beach cleanup in Tainan as part of his campaign but an unknown group of people beat him to it. A day before he was due to arrive, they cleaned up all the discarded bottles, cans, plastic bags and styrofoam that were on the shore. They did such a thorough job that the politician had no choice but to cancel his trip, but at least the beach was cleaned up anyway.
Cleaning up Taiwan’s streets, forests and shores is a great way to help out the environment. Ultimately, it’s a job that doesn’t require any expertise or professional knowledge but it’s a job that can have a big impact both visually and for the environment. With such a wide array of different organizations each with their own cleanup events in the areas that most need assistance, you’re spoiled for choice if you want to take part in cleaning up. Ultimately what these events show is just how easy it is nowadays to make a big impact on the local environment through working together with others - let’s hope they continue to spread even further.