Confessions of a Volunteer: No Excuses at World Cleanup Day

Imagine a team of millions of people working together to complete a project with a seemingly unimaginable goal. Now, envision the members of the very same team working in different countries, time zones, and in some cases speaking a language that you are not familiar with. Despite the global pandemic, this year World Cleanup Day united more than 145 countries and millions of volunteers helping rid our planet of trash. And I was lucky enough to have a small role in all of this.

World Cleanup Day is a global movement that has roots in 2008, when the Let’s Do It movement activated 50,000 people (ca 3.7% of the total population) to clean up the entire country of Estonia in just five hours. I remember this day vividly - being part of such a huge movement sparked a different set of emotions in me, from joy, to being inspired, to acknowledging that we were leaving a mark in history. But there was also something else in the air - a sense of powerlessness after seeing how much trash people actually dump in nature.

Fast forward 10 years, the very first World Cleanup Day took place. The success of the Let’s Do It Movement inspired other countries to organize their own cleanups, until the organizers had the idea of arranging a world-wide clean up in just one day. To date, 4 World Cleanup Days have taken place. The one in 2019, right before the outburst of the global pandemic, is the biggest so far with 21 million people collecting 100 000 tons of trash in 180 countries. Despite many challenges, this year on September 18, more than 145 countries and millions of volunteers helped rid our planet of trash. 

Zero plans of joining the movement

Over the years, Pipedrive has supported worthy causes through partnerships with NGOs, community organizations, the private sector, and state governments that can make a lasting and meaningful difference in the lives of a local community. Our forms of support differ case by case, from donating time, to sharing experiences and knowledge, to making a financial contribution. However, our support has crystallized into three focal themes: sustainability, diversity, and education. 

For several years now, Pipedrive has been a proud supporting partner of World Cleanup Day. Despite millions of volunteers collecting trash in their countries, technology plays a big role in connecting people all over the world. One technical solution of many, Pipedrive CRM helps the organization keep track of countries and partners around the globe, allowing them to save time on project management and avoid repetitive tasks. More effective and trustworthy than Excel or any other tool requiring a lot of manual work or attention to detail, our platform visualizes the planning process of this immense project like no other. After all, World Cleanup Day is the biggest civic global movement of our times. 

There are not enough words to explain what World Cleanup Day has achieved globally. It is not just about collecting trash and raising awareness about the existing environmental issues; rather it is about building a common sense of belonging and togetherness in solving a joint problem. And yet, I have to admit that I had zero plans of joining the movement this year. Till three days before the cleanup day, when one of the organizers that I had been in contact with asked me to join as a volunteer in World Cleanup Day’s HQ. Without hesitation I said yes and the rest is history.

Travelling from one country to another

The event’s HQ consisted of three studios and several rooms or working areas in which volunteers fulfilled their tasks. I was paired up with another volunteer and we were one of several teams interviewing and recording cleanup teams all over the world. The recorded video served as a social media asset for bringing much-deserved attention to the teams cleaning up their homes as well as sources of information in terms of collected trash, faced challenges, or interesting facts that described their event. While my partner conducted interviews, my role as an editor was picking up relevant information, filling in questionnaires, and selecting the most interesting parts of interviews for further editing by the video team.

Figuratively speaking, we travelled from one country to another with the help of internet connection and video conferencing. My team interviewed people mostly from Europe, Africa, and South America, but despite different backgrounds, collected trash, or sizes of the teams, they all had something special in common - the inner desire to make a difference in the place that they were cleaning and being proud of the community that came together for making this goal become true. But something else also popped into my mind - I remembered the feeling back in 2008 when I realized that in some parts of Estonia, the beautiful and untouched nature Estonians are so proud of is more of a myth than reality. Many of these countries experience something very similar - their beautiful beaches or places that tourists love disguise the plastic pollution accumulated in locations nearby.

Notes to self

I cannot help but acknowledge how my short volunteering experience reminded me of working at Pipedrive.

• Team first. When I paired up with my team member, we realized that it was the very first time volunteering at World Cleanup Day for the both of us. I loved how quickly we found team chemistry and helped one another keep track on the video calling schedule as well as other tasks that we were supposed to do. The same goes for the rest of the volunteers that I interacted with - given the circumstances that brought us to the situation, nothing else mattered but the joint goal and the shared experiences.
• Improvise, adapt, overcome. Even if everything is planned meticulously, there is always something unexpected that changes the game. From poor internet connection to technological challenges, there were several factors that made what was a great plan on paper far from perfect in reality. Yet, with the power of a great team and simply not giving up by finding alternative solutions makes you realize that nothing is impossible and every challenge has a solution. Plus, a small boost of adrenaline makes the event even more memorable.
• No excuses! It would be so easy to ignore the problem (and I almost did), but World Cleanup Day has proved that inspiring millions of people to take action at the very same time is not science fiction. A similar inner drive has urged most technology companies to develop an idea on paper to an actual solution that customers can benefit from. We don’t have planet B, but as long as we have people who believe in the unbelievable, there is definitely hope for a better future. Apart from a cleaner world, this stands as the best part of this very special day.