In the first three months of this year, 1,105 Environmental SOS messages have been received, which is almost twice as many as last year in this time period, informs the head of public relations of the State Environmental Service (VVD) Aija Jalinska.
Of all the reports received, about 75% are about littering the environment with various types of waste.
The head of the VVD Operational Coordination Center, Elmārs Jasinskis, emphasized that everyone is responsible for the impact of their actions on the environment. Illegally dumped construction debris, furniture, electrical goods and household waste are still found in the forests, which significantly and negatively affect the cleanliness and quality of the environment. At the same time, everyone can be a guardian of the environment, keeping the surroundings clean and tidy, urged Jasinskis.
Also this year, similarly as before, the residents of Riga and Pieriga have reported the most actively in the Environmental SOS app, and the municipalities and forest managers of these administrative territories have also actively dealt with the received reports. Already less than 40% of the reports received this year about contaminated areas have been cleaned up.
This year, the guiding principle of the Great Cleanup is “clean-green-long”, so in particular, VVD encourages cleaners, when cleaning up forests and roadsides, not only to collect discarded waste, but to sort it immediately, thus giving the opportunity for the collected waste to have as little impact as possible on the environment, taking into account that part of the waste can be recycled. It is possible to find out the nearest sorted waste collection point on the website “skiroviegli.lv”.
VVD invites you to download the Environmental SOS application on your phone when you go to clean up and report any construction debris or bulky waste found in nature. Also, those cleaners who already have the VIDES SOS app on their phones should make sure to download the latest available version of the app in order to successfully submit a report.
