Toulouse. Nearly 40 tonnes of waste collected in Haute-Garonne during World Clean Up Day
Nearly 40 tons of waste were accelerated during World Clean Up Day in Haute-Garonne. Results of these two clean-up days, held on September 17 and 18.
More than 8,000 people mobilized, 40 tons of waste and 325,000 cigarette butts were declared in Haute-Garonne, during the World Clean Up Day, on September 17 and 18. The WCUD Occitanie group and Toulouse Métropole, both organizers of the event, take stock of these two days of anti-pollution mobilization.
“Occitanie beats the record for the largest number of volunteers in relation to its number of inhabitants, with 32,500 people mobilized, including 14,000 children”, says Catherine Sanchez, Occitanie ambassador for WCUD. 262 tons of waste were collected in the region. In Haute-Garonne, 8,372 participants were reclassified in 2022, compared to 6,578 in 2021. A considerable increase of 27%.
The plague of cigarette butts
If the participants are numerous, the waste in the streets is also. In Haute-Garonne, 277 cleaning sessions were recorded, enabling the collection of 39.7 tonnes of rubbish and 325,000 cigarette butts. On September 18, about fifty volunteers, deployed on Place Wilson in Toulouse, collected 27,800 cigarette butts in just one hour. Alarming figures which testify to the omnipresence of this waste in the Pink City.
Recycled waste
But, what happens to the rubbish collected during the World Clean Up Day? “We try to revalue them as much as possible, by delivering them to associations like K Net Partage, which recycle cans, capsules and other small metal objects to finance support projects for children with disabilities”, says Xavier Chenin , WCUD Occitanie ambassador. The cigarette butts, meanwhile, are “transformed into a powder (named energy substitution fuel, editor’s note), and burned in ovens to produce energy”, he explains.
After litter, volunteers are now tackling digital pollution with the Digital World Clean Up Day, to be held the week of March 18, 2023.