Have you ever felt upset when you've seen a gorgeous beach covered in plastic or your local park covered in litter?
Have you ever questioned if there would be anything that could be done about it?

On 24 March, the global civic action World Clean Up 2012, was launched with clean-up initiatives taking place in Portugal and Slovenia, eventually making its way to the UK on 13 May 2012. The aim of the action is to solve illegal dumping problem on a global and global level by engaging large part of the society on the action day and raising the issues related to illegal dumping.

JCI UK Chambers have also decided to take the lead and arrange a clean-up action in their local communities.

• JCI Liverpool is working with the Commercial District BID, the body responsible for delivering the development and improvements in the commercial district of Liverpool, and local businesses to make the day a success.
• JCI Barnsley has decided to make a difference in their Church Side Community Park, which was vandalised and made unsafe about six months ago. According to JCI Barnsley President Kirstie Barnett, they are hoping to work alongside the local action group for the area and a volunteer group from Barnsley to make the park safe for it to be reopened again.
• Furthermore, JCI Southampton has showed great enthusiasm in in the project and is keen to arrange their own action, in case they manage to locate a suitable area in their local community.
• For clean-up action with JCI Bradford, keep your eyes and ears open after Easter, when the details will be announced.
• As for the Londoners, they are doing their bit for the campaign as part of the West London foreshore Big Summer clean up on 7 July 2012.

In case your chamber is not running a clean-up, but you would like to get involved, why not contact the chambers mentioned above to join? Or if you think your chamber should take part and know of a good location for the clean-up, why not get in touch with your community director or council team and ask to run it? It's a fantastic and fun project to get involved in - let's do it!

Triin Paavel
Project Leader, Let's Clean Up the World