Trash(ure) Hunt and other Cleanup examples
All ages, 2-3 hours
What
Garbage collection with others to find the ‘Trashure’ (treasure).
Aim
The participants discover that creating a clean environment can be fun and creating awareness about microplastics from cigarette stubs and littler in the environment.
Materials
- For the cleanup: Collection bags, plastic gloves, trash pickers (or fishing nets), a prize.
- Use and show signs or a flag with the ESRAG-EndPlasticSoup logo for promotion and awareness.
Preparation
- Promote the event in local media.
- Create a map showing directions to find the path towards the ‘trashure’ location: and arrange to collect the bags afterwards. Add event rules and safety guidelines.
- Arrange a prize or multiple small surprises for the partcipants.
Options
- ‘Trash dating’ make a ‘Trash date’ with friends or someone you like or ask a small group (2-4) to start trash dating frequently.
- ‘No butts’: collect cigarette buts, count and report the number, and put them in a basket or bag to show and tell everyone that 1 single butt poisons 40 liter of water.
- ‘SUP against SUP’: ‘Stand Up Paddling’ to remove ‘Single Use Plastic’ waste from waters, using surf boards and fishing nets to collect trash from the water.
- ‘Brand audit’: use a separate bag to collect waste with a visible brand name (e.g. Mars candy products, Red Bull cans, Drink packages, beer bottles) (or use the the Litterati app to make pictures of these items). Count these items per brand and report them afterwards. Totals can be sent to the #Breakfreefromplastic brand audit.
- Use the Plastic Bingo app to find trash according to all 16 pictures and reward a ‘Bingo’ with a prize.
- School or Sport Club challenge: at schools or sport clubs: organize an event per class or team, create a poster which can be displayed and measure results. Don’t forget to include the ‘before and after’ picture.
Tip
Provide a back-up activity and location in case of bad weather, e.g. an EndPlasticSoup Plastic Collage Pubquiz or a Make@thon with teams of 3-4 persons to brainstorm ideas to keep the school, sport location clean.
Afterwards
Send ‘attractive’ or ‘active’ pictures to endplasticsoup@gmail.com, jointly with the description of the activity, including organizing club, results and lessons learned.
Contact
For questions: RC Huizen Gooimeer
Contact person: Gert-Jan van Dommelen · endplasticsoup@gmail.com
