#WorldCleanUpDay: This year World Clean Up Day falls on Saturday, 16th of September. While this date does not work for everyone you may find a more suitable date for your event in the two weeks following this date.
A few tips on how we usually organize these kinds of clean-up events :
- Pick a date and time that works for our Community: If we are considering doing a beach or river clean up, we check the local tides and try to do our clean up at low tide. (Also considering the temperature of the day.)
- Choosing a clean-up site: Deciding on what we want to contribute to clean up a beach, park, bushland, river or a nearby community area.
- Contact the local municipality or council to ask for permission : We make sure that the gathered waste gets collected. Do aim to recycle as much as possible. (the municipality is normally delighted to help us!).
- Letting our host club members/relevant community know the details of the event via communication channels like emails.
- Checking if we can have co-leaders who can work with us to manage the event and promote it. We also assign roles to members e.g. site leader or registration desk.
- Work with our local Airbnb Community Leader to get an email invitation sent out to hosts in our area to invite them along. Reminding participating members to wear comfortable shoes, bring a water bottle and sunscreen.
- Promote our meetup in Airbnb Community Center/Official Airbnb Local Host Clubs group for visibility of your initiative.
- Let participating hosts know what we will be providing or what they need to bring along with them : e.g. gloves, collection bags, drinks or refreshments, hand washing facilities or hand wipes. We also usually advise them to pack a first aid kit and sunscreen. We try asking your local hardware store if they would like to support our community event with free or discounted gloves and collection bags. If they do, we ensure to promote this within our community group and also thank them after the event.
- Sharing important details of the event : Details usually include a meeting point, targeted area for cleaning up, time of the event, parking availability, public transport, nearby public toilets, waste disposal locations etc.
- Closer to the event date, we usually check the weather and make sure to dress appropriately. We send reminder messages to hosts who have registered to come along and put up reminder posts on social media.
- On the day of the cleanup event , we advise our participating members to make sure their phone is fully charged, and that they are contactable at all times. We also double check with our participants, if they are happy to be photographed. If they consent, we also take photos to share with our community and as a remembrance of the event.
- At the clean-up location/meeting point, we set up our Airbnb community banner so that our participating members and hosts can easily find us. As organizers , we usually aim to arrive early to set up the event and be ready to welcome hosts as they arrive.
- We instruct our participants to collect waste and recyclables. But also request them not to touch nature, dead animals, homeless encampments, syringes, needles and hazardous materials.
- We try our best to sort waste into different groups during the clean up. This helps us easily analyze what types of waste have been collected and what can be recycled. If we want to create a photo album of the event, we also take photos of what we have collected (in order to showcase it for our next event).
- After the event, we make sure to celebrate and THANK each and every participant for coming along. We also take group pictures to share in our community facebook group and social media channels to bring awareness amongst locals.
- After the clean up, we make sure that all the collected waste is left in the best spot for collection of regular waste management and that nothing gets left behind on the clean-up spot.
- After wrapping up the event and taking a breather, we share photos of the event in our community groups and inspire others to come along next time. We usually use the hashtags #Airbnbcleanupday, #Airbnbsustainability , #Airbnbhostcommunity for the event to promote these sustainability efforts as a Host on social media.
- If you are also interested in running such events, you can also refer to a few readily available resources online. Sharing a few for our Host Community’s references :
World Cleanup Day Guidelines and World Cleanup Day 2023 Website to explore further.
What we have learnt through these events is that the clean up does not need a huge number of people to be successful. Some of the best events are just a few people coming together, getting to know one another and starting the movement. As they say, every action counts to make our lovely planet sustainable and safe for our future generations.
This post is co-authored by Host Advisory Board members Felicity from Australia and Jennifer from Canada.The article is written based on our own personal experiences and opinions as a sustainable Host. Learn more about the Host Advisory Board.
Jennifer Schnier
