There are many ways to contribute to conserving nature. One of these small, but highly important ways is known as ?Trash Collecting Events?. As you can relate from its meaning, it is the act of a number of people collecting trash in a specific area to not only decrease the number trash in the area but also to hopefully raise the public?s as well as authority?s awareness on the situation of the area. Now, I know that almost all of you ambassadors have posted one or more articles about the times you organized such events. I would like to share two of mine as well while also mentioning two other events done by others from different parts of Turkey.

               Starting with mine, the first event that I organized was actually a four-man group visiting the nearest forest and picking up some trash two years ago. It was obviously not a big trash collecting event, however, thanks to my biology teacher the word spread around the school and one by one all the primary school teachers organized small events where they took the children to collect the trash in the same area. And during the last year, I accompanied one of the groups and took part in the event where I was astonished by the enthusiasm of other kids around me. The forest is still full of garbage, but what makes me happy is that four of us was able to be an example to the whole school and was able raise the school?s awareness.

               The second one is a similar story, but happened in Gaziantep in 2008. The big difference is that this group of high school students? aim was to collect the used paper that were thrown near or in the forests and then send them to the recycling center(one idea that slipped my mind when I organized my own trash collecting event). They decided on certain places and collected paper once in a week in those designated areas for roughly a month. It is estimated that they collected 100 kilograms of paper. After everything was finished, they also made presentations to the municipality about their work and encouraged the municipality to organize such events.

               Last but not least, I would like to mention Let?s Do IT Turkey (LDIT). Let?s Do It is a movement that began in Estonia in2008 with 50,000 people trying to clean up a whole city with in just five hours. The movement then grew larger and larger and became and international organization. Their aim is to basically clean up the whole World from illegally dumped solid waste and to then keep our planet clean. They are like an organization that just does trash collecting events in 122 countries with 13 million participants and they have a Turkey branch. In 2014, for example, they went to Manyas Lake, also known as ?Bird Paradise?, to clean it up for three days since it is known to be polluted day by day which I also mentioned in one of my past articles.

               In conclusion, there are many organizations, movements, groups, schools or even individuals who try to get the world rid of all these carelessly thrown wastes. I believe, stories and events just like the ones that I have mentioned and the ones all you ambassadors mentioned are small but very crucial steps to achieving our goals.