LATVIA: Over 200,000 people take part in the campaign aimed at turning the country into the world's greenest

Record ID: 346549

  • Title: LATVIA: Over 200,000 people take part in the campaign aimed at turning the country into the world's greenest
  • Date: 23rd April 2012
  • Summary: SLATE INFORMATION
  • Embargoed: 8th May 2012 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Latvia, Latvia
  • Country: Latvia
  • Topics: Environment,Domestic Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVA5MEAITNO7KS5XZ0WZ5F0U48YU
  • Story Text: Over 210,000 volunteers participated in this year's Big Cleanup in Latvia trying to achieve the ambitious task of turning the country into the greenest and cleanest on earth.
    This year's cleanup was the fifth and the most ambitious one - the volunteers cleaned the record number of places - 1,490 venues all over Latvia, including rivers, lakes and canals.
    Riga municipality police divers were busy cleaning the bottom of one of the city's lakes.
    "I've inspected the lake two weeks ago and I know approximate amount of rubbish here. The dirtiest parts are around fishermen bridges where we find empty tins, bottles, almost everything - toy ships, kids' shoes, swimming glasses, socks, all kinds of household waste," said diver Rolands Kronbergs.
    The environmental journalist Sandijs Semjonovs took his entire family to clean up the territory of Riga's children hospital.
    "It is important that children get involved too, so they understand that littering is not good. Often it is the case when in summer they eat ice cream, and think - but where do I put this wrapping paper? With no litter box nearby they just throw it away. Now they know that later they would have to go and collect it. On the one hand it is an educational moment, but then again - a good contribution to Latvia's environment, because it is obviously not the case when some space creatures arrive here and litter around, it is us who do it and we are the ones to clean it," said Semjonovs.
    Latvia's pop stars, athletes, top officials took part in this year's cleanup. Prime Minister Valdis Dombrovskis planted trees in one of Riga parks.
    "We must admit that although Green campaign tradition is several years old, there is still a lot to do. From this point of view we can say that Latvia gets cleaner, but there are still people who litter around, and as a result, there is something to do every year," said Dombrovskis.
    The prime minister supports an ambitious task to turn Latvia into the world's greenest country.
    According to the recent Yale and Columbia universities' research "Environmental Performance Index" (EPI), published in the beginning of 2012, Latvia ranks the second after Switzerland out of 132 countries surveyed.
    The cleanup organizers reported that total of 174 tons of waste has been collected over the weekend and because the country is getting cleaner this year volunteers went one step further - they built several children playgrounds and planted trees.
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