About 40,000 people help pick up litter on National Cleanup Day

On Saturday, tens of thousands of participants in the National Cleanup Day removed a large amount of litter in cities and villages and along the banks of the Maas River. Since the introduction of the deposit, the cleaners have come across fewer cans and bottles than before. However, other types of waste remain stubborn. "Chewing gum and cigarette butts, for example. You have to bear in mind that a cigarette butt lies around for so long that you probably don't notice it decaying yourself," said general manager Hester Klein Lankhorst from the Clean-Up organizer Verpact.

This was the 22nd time that the annual spring cleaning had taken place. Around 40,000 people registered via the website. This is slightly less than last year when the organization received around 50,000 registrations. Klein Lankhorst said, however, that more people take part in the action in general, but not everyone registers.

In addition to the National Cleanup Day, a major cleanup campaign along the Maas River and its tributaries took place at the same time. Even more people took part in the Maas Cleanup than in previous years. In the entire catchment area between Eijsden and Rotterdam, there were 250 local cleanups in which around 14,500 volunteers took part. They cleared the banks of over 250,000 kilograms of waste, according to an initial estimate by the organization behind the campaign.

The participants of the Cleanup Day also included people who removed litter from the water in Amersfoort on surfboards. Verpact director Klein Lankhorst was out and about with the mayor of De Bilt, Sjoerd Potters, in Bilthoven, where they were pleased to see that the streets already looked "reasonably clean."

In Vlaardingen, volunteers cleaning up litter came across a "suspicious bag," which later turned out to be a homemade explosive device.

Verpact is the organization that includes the Waste Fund for Packaging, Netherlands Clean, and Deposit Money Netherlands, among others. The organization implements a legal recycling policy for manufacturers and importers. The organization's goal is to prevent littering for good. By 2050, for example, it aims to make the Netherlands 100% litter-free. The organization wants to achieve this through various measures, including recycling campaigns and clean-up actions.