Can you name a US holiday in September? Of course, everyone knows about Labor Day. Some may even be able to name the holidays on the Jewish calendar, but I bet you that the vast majority will be hard pressed to name this one—National CleanUp Day.
National CleanUp Day is held annually in the United States and globally on the third Saturday of September. Yes, in the United States, organizations around the country celebrate this day. There are cleanups held in every state and territory, with efforts aimed to promote a clean outdoor environment for everyone, raise awareness about the problems with littering, and mobilize resources for beautifying and improving their local communities, parks, trails, beaches, and open spaces.
Observed by: National CleanUp Day is observed globally.
Celebrations: Volunteer to cleanup the country, from sea to shining sea.
Date: 3rd Saturday in September
Frequency: Annual
Launched in 2017 by Clean Trails, a nonprofit organization founded by Steve Jewett and Bill Willoughby, National CleanUp Day has encouraged Americans to keep the outdoors clean and volunteer their time to collect trash and beautify their neighborhoods and green spaces. The National CleanUp Day campaign poses a simple question. “What would the world be like if everyone picked up at least one piece of litter?” On the third Saturday of September, they encourage everyone to do just that. By encouraging public participation in clean-up events, the organization promotes civic responsibility and strengthens connections between neighbors. The campaign is enthusiastically adopted by hundreds of community-based organizations and volunteer groups that do the grassroots work of putting together events, recruiting volunteers, and getting the word out to the public. As a result, the inaugural National CleanUp Day was held in 2017 and had more than 225,000 volunteers. The 2018 event had over 1,500,000 volunteers, 14 million pounds of waste collected, and was held in conjunction with the inaugural World Cleanup Day. The 2019 cleanup received nearly two million volunteers and resulted in the collection of 18 million pounds of waste. In 2020, the year of Covid, CleanUp Day pivoted from large scale cleanups to individual cleanups. They had over 671,000 signups by individuals, municipalities, schools, and companies.
9/17/2023
Children adopting a road in Hyattsville, Prince Georges County, Maryland.
To commemorate National CleanUp Day, EcoHorizons organized a community event on September 16, 2023, in the Hyattsville neighborhood of PG County, where local children actively participating in a neighborhood cleanup. They enthusiastically collected a variety of litter, including discarded plastic bags, paper, and even a diaper. There was a lot more litter than anyone expected, as much of it was hidden.
Through this hands-on experience, the children gained a profound appreciation for the significance of maintaining a clean and safe neighborhood. The event has given young participants a sense of responsibility and pride in caring for their environment. Moreover, the children get to understand that the invention of plastics and the growth of fast food and disposable, one-time-use packaging has increased the litter problem at an alarming rate. Now, imagine the “aha” moment on their faces when they learned that some plastics take longer to degrade than they could count—hundreds of years!
Suddenly, the children realized that those colorful plastics could outpace even the tiniest ocean creatures like phytoplankton and zooplankton.
And so, on this beautiful day, EcoHorizons turned a simple cleanup into an adventure. It was an awakening to the planet’s call, and a promise of a more colorful, plastic-free future.
Works Cited
“National Clean-Up Day 2020: Be Part of The Solution, Not the Pollution”. Plus Printers. Retrieved
December 15, 2022.
“Get out your trash bags: Saturday is National Cleanup Day”. Spectrum News 1. September 21,
2021. Retrieved December 15, 2022.
“National CleanUp Day Municipalities”. nationalcleanupday.org. Retrieved 25 July 2020.
“National CleanUp Day Annual Report 2020”. CleanUp News. December 14, 2020. Retrieved
December 18, 2020.
“Caring for the Environment on National Cleanup Day”. Her Next Chapter. 8 October 2020. Retrieved
December 18, 2020.
