Over 1,000 communities in Donegal will come together to launch National Spring Clean 2022

Today marks the official launch The National Spring Clean 2022 and over 1,000 communities throughout Donegal will be taking part - and that's no April Fool's Day joke!

In fact, over 1,000 volunteers carried out over 80 clean-ups throughout the county in 2021. In 2022, approximately groups and communities already registered to carry out a clean-up as part of the National Spring Clean.

This year, the campaign is on track to make 2022’s National Spring Clean campaign the biggest yet with the organization already surpassing the number of registrations they had gained this time last year.

It is also an opportunity for volunteers to take local actions to make a change at a global scale as combined local actions can have a global effect on how we dispose and treat our waste.

This has a substantial impact on the levels of emissions of several greenhouse gases which contribute to climate change.

National Spring Clean is operated by the Environmental Education Unit of An Taisce in partnership with Local Authorities and supported by the Department of Environment, Communications and Climate Environment and Mars Wrigley Ireland.

The initiative takes part in the month of April and for the past 23 years National Spring Clean has volunteered over 12 million hours of their time to remove 42,000 tonnes of litter across the country.

Community spirit is integral to the work that The National Spring Clean does and each year communities from all over the country come together to ensure their local areas are as clean as possible for everyone to enjoy together.

This year the theme of community pride is at the forefront of the campaign with The National Spring Clean urging people of all ages to gather friends, family, classmates, neighbours, or colleagues to unite in cleaning their shared green spaces together.

National Spring Clean 2021 was the biggest and the longest campaign so far, taking place between March and August, and despite the current situation and restrictions at the start of the year.

To make sure that each community clean-up can run as smoothly as possible the National Spring Clean has also provided various downloadable information packs on their website for their volunteers to read.

The clean-up information pack contains details on how to organise an event, health and safety information, litter facts, useful contacts, media and publicity advice, a guide on how to recycle, and information on litter and the law.

For those who would like to organise a clean-up, you can log on to the website at www.nationalspringclean.org to request a free clean-up kit.