World Cleanup Day 2025: Together for a Waste-Free World

On World Cleanup Day, millions of people worldwide join forces to clear streets, parks, beaches and rivers of waste. Since its introduction in 2018, it has been considered the largest civic environmental movement of our time and is now carried out in more than 200 countries.
On 20 September 2024, the date was officially observed as an international day in the UN calendar.

World Cleanup Day is not just a collective clean-up. Behind the initiative lies a greater vision:

creating awareness of the global waste crisis
strengthening communities
initiating a rethink in the way resources are handled

Waste in rivers, seas or urban spaces not only creates an unpleasant sight in the short term. In the long run, it causes ecological damage that endangers animals, ecosystems and ultimately human health. The overarching goal is clear: a healthy, waste-free planet.

Where does all the waste come from?

The global volumes of waste are not accidental but the result of several factors:

Overproduction and overconsumption: In many industries – whether textiles, food or electronics – more products are manufactured than are actually needed or used. Fast fashion is a prime example: cheap, short-lived clothing floods the markets and quickly ends up in landfills or incinerators.
Packaging: A significant share of global waste consists of packaging, particularly single-use plastics, from water bottles to shipping parcels. These materials often serve for only minutes, yet burden the environment for decades.
Lack of or inadequate waste management: In many regions, there are no comprehensive systems for waste separation, recycling or secure landfills. Waste ends up unfiltered in nature, in rivers or is burned under hazardous conditions.
Globalised supply chains: Waste is not just a local issue. Textile waste from Europe, for example, ends up in landfills in Ghana or Kenya. Waste “travels” along global trade routes and accumulates where disposal is cheapest.

Is recycling and proper waste separation enough?

At first glance, it may seem as if correct waste separation is the solution. But here is the catch:

Downcycling instead of true recycling: Many materials cannot be recycled indefinitely. Plastics lose quality with each cycle, and textiles are often only turned into lower-grade products (e.g. cleaning cloths or insulation materials) before eventually having to be discarded.
Recycling rates are lower than assumed: Worldwide, less than 10% of produced plastics are actually recycled. The picture is similar for textiles: only a small fraction is materially reused, while the rest ends up in waste-to-energy plants or landfills.
Composite materials are hardly recyclable: Products made from different materials, for example, textiles with polyester-cotton blends or coated packaging are difficult or impossible to separate into pure streams. In practice, they are excluded from recycling.
Energy and chemical input: Recycling itself is not a neutral process. It requires energy, water and sometimes harsh chemicals. While waste is reduced, new environmental impacts are created.
Structural problem: Even if we all separated and recycled correctly, the volumes remain too high. Recycling alone cannot keep pace with the speed at which new waste is produced.

Case study Kenya: The Dandora landfill

A look at Kenya shows how complex the global waste issue is. In Nairobi lies the Dandora landfill, one of the largest dumps in East Africa. Originally designed for smaller volumes of waste, it now receives more than 2,000 tonnes of unsorted waste every day, including household, industrial and medical refuse.

The landfill is both a livelihood and a hazard. Around 5,000 waste pickers earn their living here by sorting materials such as plastic, metal or glass from the heaps of waste. However, this work takes place under precarious conditions and comes with considerable health risks, such as respiratory diseases or skin problems. In addition, hard-to-process materials such as fast-fashion textiles or plastics containing harmful substances put a lasting strain on the environment.

The contrast with World Cleanup Day is clear: while millions of people collect waste together on a single day, communities like those in Nairobi have to deal with the long-term consequences of global consumption patterns every day. Structural solutions in waste management are needed: from systematic separation and circular concepts to fair working conditions for those handling waste.

Prevention instead of disposal

Textiles are among the fastest-growing waste streams worldwide, driven by overproduction and the trend towards short-lived fast fashion. Studies show that, on average, less than 20% of the clothes in a wardrobe are worn regularly. Many items remain unused because they no longer fit, are uncomfortable or are simply no longer liked. These unworn pieces do not just disappear – sooner or later, they often end up in the waste stream. Whether through clothing collections, containers or residual waste, a significant share ends up in landfills or is burned. As a result, the global mountain of textile waste grows, causing long-term ecological damage similar to plastics.

The COSH! Digital Wardrobe app digitises the wardrobe and shows which items are being used. This makes it possible to sort out clothing in a targeted way, donate, repair or sell it. In doing so, the lifespan of textiles is extended, while also supporting conscious purchasing decisions.

The COSH! Digital Wardrobe can help raise awareness about how we handle clothing and contribute to reducing avoidable waste.

Waste prevention

Proper recycling is useful and necessary, but it is only part of the solution. Real change becomes effective only when:

products are designed to be durable and repairable
political frameworks create incentives for circular economy models
companies take responsibility and establish take-back systems
we consume more consciously

Even small changes in consumption behaviour can have measurable effects. At the same time, it is clear that the waste issue is multidimensional and cannot be solved by individual actions alone. Consumers can reflect on their consumption, companies are called upon to take responsibility for products and supply chains throughout the entire life cycle, and political actors must support the transition to circular models through regulatory frameworks. In combination, these factors can initiate structural changes that go beyond individual initiatives and lead to a significant reduction in waste volumes in the long term.

World Cleanup Day is more than just a day of action. It draws attention to the global waste problem and sparks discussions for long-term change.
Join in, bring along your family, colleagues or friends, share knowledge and become part of the movement.