Every bit counts

Tommy Kleyn, a fellow Dutch citizen has shown just how easy it is to do voluntary work in your community. All you need is the will to make a difference, 30 minutes of your time and a trash bag. Tommy got fed up by the pollution along the waterfront he passed every day on his way to work and decided to invest a few minutes of his time every day to clean up the area. After having posted images of the polluted area of Facebook and explaining his goal he started getting help from friends and by passers.
His story is simple. “Every day I ride my bike to work along the riverbank, it is a nice route to ride except for one part, there is a stretch of the river bank which is covered in plastic bottles and other pieces of (mainly) plastic trash. The trash started to annoyed me very much so I decided to start picking it up. It took me about 30 min to fill up one garbage bag with trash. But one bag does not make a dent in an areas as polluted as this. I vowed to fill one bag of trash each day I passed the spot. I shared my experiences on Facebook and now, over 180 people “like” the project. Many people expressed their wish to see more people like me, and there are. One by one my friends and by passers started joining in on the cleaning and today I can fully enjoy my bike ride to work. I really motivate people to do the same, take a few minutes out of your day, week, month or even year to make a difference. It is amazing how good you feel afterwards. And you can really see the difference it makes, an Eurasian Coot started nesting in the part I had cleaned.”
Tommy is an excellent example of a conscious citizen who is doing what he can to make our environment more sustainable.