Participants: Romans Pilenoks and Ignats Gusevs (Latvia)

Mentor: Anastasija Veselkova

We gathered next to the Jūrmala beach and started our trash hunt there. Unfortunately (or luckily) we couldn’t find much, so we moved to the nearby forest. Most common findings were napkins, food packages and empty bottles or cans. However, we found a few unexpected objects as well: most notably a ripped apart teddy bear, some metal items of unknown purpose and a few jars, full of conserved vegetables, with a bottle next to them. We collected 4 bags of a total weight of about 13 kg.

Trainees were quite enthusiastic about the whole process and about some particular findings as well. Later on, we sorted garbage as much as possible and threw it away into special containers.

Paula Lībeka & Elizabete Granta:

Responding to concerns from Liepāja residents about the cleanliness of Liepāja’s beach (source), we set out to help improve the situation. On June 16, 2025, a group of seven people organized a cleanup in the beach and coastal dune area. In just forty minutes, a 120-liter trash container was filled. In total, we collected eight bags of trash and various large items. The most common type of waste was cigarette butts. Despite Latvia’s deposit system, the second most common waste type was empty bottles of alcohol and other drinks.

The “best” finds during this cleanup included: one burned Dolce & Gabbana shoe, a portable air conditioner (in disassembled form), part of a toaster, several wires, and a glass beer mug. There was significantly less trash on the beach itself compared to the dune zone, where illegal fire pits were also found. Due to the low number of trash bins, waste had been thrown into nearby bushes (which made the cleanup process much more difficult). This was a 1.5 km stretch of publicly accessible, municipally managed territory.

Once again, this highlights the issues of trash bin availability, distance, and quantity (source), as well as the ongoing problem of cigarette litter, about which the Latvian public has been repeatedly informed. Cleanups like this one require little time and few resources, yet they have an impact. We recommend organizing similar actions—for the sake of yourself and nature—and thinking more consciously about waste in daily life.