The people of Estonia decided they’d had enough of the garbage that littered their countryside and forests.

Instead of waiting for the government to take care of it, or turning a blind eye and hoping it would just go away, they did something about it.

50,000 people scoured fields, streets, forests and riverbanks across the country, picking up everything from tractor batteries to paint tins (see a BBC video here). Much of this junk was ferried to central dumps, often in the vehicles of volunteers.  ~Anthony D Williams

I am literally boggled by this. 50,000 people, in one day, all went out into the countryside and helped make a difference. Fantastic!

This initiative, Let’s Do It!, was organized by two entrepreneurs, Ahti Heinla from Skype and Rainer Nolvak from Delfi. The fact that this was organized by entrepreneurs doesn’t surprise me in the least. They used Google Maps to start the grassroots program to map and photograph the problem trash sites.

Neighboring Latvia, not to be outdone, decided to do a clean up as well.

Wouldn’t it be fantastic if this kind of thinking went viral?

Each country trying to out clean the other? Tens of thousands of people getting out of their houses, all to put their good intentions to work.

Imagine the next Earth Day where everyone, across the world pledged just an hour of their time that day to go out and clean up.

Now, imagine if we all actually did it.

Imagine how fantastic that would be.

‘Chelle Parmele
Palo Alto Software