Israel to takes part in World Cleanup 2012 as some 250,000 JNF volunteers, across 120 cities, will participate in largest nationwide environmental project

Ynetnews
Published: 09.13.12

Israel will take part in the regional leg of the World Cleanup 2012 initiative, which scores of volunteers cleaning up en masse cities’ streets on Thursday.

Israel has been taking part in the imitative for the past 11 years.

The World Cleanup 2012 project, which sees various nations “clean up” as part of the global community’s efforts to increase individual environmental awareness, began on March 24th and is expected to end on September 25th.

Some 120 nations joined the initiative in 2012, racking up 24,563 “waste points.” Israel scored four points.

Thursday will see some 250,000 volunteers – schoolchildren, soldiers, students, youth movement members and private citizens – supervised by the Jewish National Fund (JNF), will spread across 120 municipalities in Israel and take part in various cleanup activities in forests, parks and other open spaces.

According to the JNF, the Israeli leg of the project was made possible with the assistance of JNF USA and JNF Australia.

The JNF will mark the day with a special ceremony in the Switzerland Forest, in Tiberias, which will be attended by JNF World Chairman Efi Stenzler, Environmental Protection Minister Gilad Erdan and Education Minister Gidon Saar.

Other dignitaries who will be attending include US Ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro, Australian Ambassador to Israel Andrea Faulkner and Tiberias Mayor Zohar Oved.

The Australia-based Clean Up the World organization was founded in 1993 in cooperation with the United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP). The Jewish National Fund joined the UNEP in 2001.

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4279679,00.html