Voice 1
Welcome to Spotlight. I’m Joshua Leo.
Voice 2
And I’m Liz Waid. Spotlight uses a special English method of broadcasting. It is easier for people to understand, no matter where in the world they live.
Voice 1
Rainer Nolvak is a business man. He is from the Eastern European country of Estonia. Estonia is famous for it’s beautiful forests and country areas. But Nolvak and his friends saw a problem. For many years people had been leaving their garbage in the forests. The forests of Estonia were full of waste. But Nolvak and his friends wanted to protect the environment. They wanted to clean up all the garbage in Estonia. And Nolvak had an idea. What if they could clean up the whole country in just one day? Today’s Spotlight is on his idea called Let’s Do It!
Voice 2
Garbage is not just a problem in Estonia. Some countries produce more garbage. Some produce less. But every day each person in the world creates garbage. There is so much garbage that people do not know where to put it. Sometimes they put it in the wrong place. This is usually against the law. This illegal garbage causes problems for the environment.
Voice 1
In Estonia, the problem seemed very large. Half of the country of Estonia is covered with beautiful forests. But people had been illegally dropping their garbage in the forest. Tiina Urm was one of the first people involved with the project. The Let’s Do It! team says that illegal garbage became a problem when Estonia was part of the Soviet Union. The forests belonged to the state. People did not feel that the land was their own. So they left their garbage in the forest. In 2007 Rainer Nolvak and his friends decided to do something about the illegal garbage in Estonia. But how could a few people clean up so much waste?
Voice 2
The first step was to help people to see the problem. The garbage was not just an environmental problem. It was a problem of people’s attitudes. Estonians had learned not to think about the waste. They did not even see the problem of the garbage. Rainer Nolvak got together with a team of twenty friends. They were all people who cared very much about the forests of Estonia. They began to make a plan about how to get rid of the garbage. They were very excited about this project. Soon, other people began to become excited too. These people joined the group. Soon over 600 people were involved.
Voice 1
They named the project Let’s Do It! Estonia. The Ministry of the Environment gave them some support. Many other organizations became involved. Famous actors and musicians also took part. Even the President of Estonia joined in. They sent information about Let’s Do It! Estonia through the country. People heard about the clean-up program on television and over the internet.
Voice 2
Information about the program was spreading around Estonia. Now, Let’s Do It! needed a plan for action. Technology experts used their skills to help. They developed a special computer program. It used a map of Estonia made from images taken by satellites.
Voice 1
Team members went into the forests to find where the garbage was. They used their mobile phones to mark every place where they found illegal garbage. They did this using GPS, the Global Positioning System. This system uses satellites to give exact locations. They sent the information to the computer program. Then, the marked garbage places appeared on the map. The map gave the team a lot of information. They could tell how much garbage was in each area. And what kind of garbage it was. Anyone could go on the internet and see the map.
Voice 2
The team found a surprising result. There was over ten thousand tonnes of waste in the forests of Estonia. Tiina Urm says that this knowledge was a very important step. She explained that when people saw how much waste was around their own homes, they were shocked. They understood that something was wrong.
Voice 1
This was a good first step. But now the project needed to get people to clean the garbage up. Let’s Do It! Estonia got help from many companies. One company let them borrow the big trucks and machines needed to carry the waste. A gas company provided fuel at a low price. But the project also required thousands of people to help.
Voice 2
The team chose May 3 2008 as the day to clean up the garbage. Let’s Do It! Estonia encouraged people to connect over the internet. Estonians joined the project. They promised to help clean up. Then they formed small groups. Each team was responsible for cleaning up garbage in one particular area. Many people signed up to help. On May 3, more than fifty thousand people helped to remove garbage. They moved over ten thousand tonnes of garbage in only one day!
Voice 1
This was an amazing achievement for the environment in Estonia. But it was also an important step for Estonian society. Rainer Nolvak gave a speech at a conference in the Balkans. He said:
Voice 3
“The most important thing we did was build a team. It changed every one of us. We had to connect to people. We had to see that the garbage was our problem. At times we are afraid of sharing. When we are together and there are many of us, we are not afraid.”
Voice 2
People from other countries saw the success in Estonia. They wanted to use the same kind of program to clean their own countries. In two thousand nine Latvia, Lithuania and Slovenia had garbage clean up days. In 2010 more than one million people around the world were involved in Let’s Do It! programs.
Voice 1
This has become Let’s do It! World. Countries from around the world are taking part. India, Brazil, the US, Cambodia and Italy are a few of the countries involved. The clean-ups will officially start on March 24, 2012. The goal is to clean up all of the worlds’ garbage. There may be a Let’s Do It! clean up program in your country. Do you think you could take part? What can you do to make your country cleaner? Let’s Do It!
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