The waste collecting campaign organised by the Ministry of Public Administration and Justice in cooperation with the Ministry of Rural Development and the Volunteer Centre Foundation was a great success. In the initiative, approximately 162,000 volunteers took part in 800 locations, and thousands of tonnes of waste was collected.

Civil society organisations, government agencies, water and forest management agencies and state companies were involved in the event in every county in Hungary. This made TeSzedd! the largest voluntary action in the history of Hungary.

This action is the most important Hungarian event in the European Year of Volunteering. On Saturday morning, at the opening press conference of the event, Csaba Latorcai, Deputy Minister of State for National Minority and Civil Society Relations, said that Hungary is setting an example to the whole of Europe in the field of volunteerism, as now forty per cent of the adult population is engaged in volunteer work of some kind. At the same event, Rural Development Minister Sándor Fazekas pointed out that the message of the TeSzedd! campaign is that not only do we need to restore the environment today, but we must also produce less waste on an everyday basis.

From 21 April, volunteers were able to register on the website teszedd.hu, where, apart from individuals and groups of friends, 156 companies, 403 NGOs and 551 public institutions registered their participation. Participants cleaned on land and in the water: volunteer divers worked in Lake Balaton, the waters of the Aggtelek National Park were also cleaned, and climbers collected waste on the cliffs of Gellért Hill in the capital.

The collected waste, which initial estimates suggest was several thousand tonnes, will be dumped in legal waste collection sites over the coming week. The organisers wish to thank all the citizens of Hungary who took part in this, the largest voluntary community action in Hungarian history, and contributed to the cleaning of public space.

(kormany.hu)