The Cleanup Guide

The Cleanup Guide by WWF International is a toolkit designed to empower employees to organize volunteer plastic cleanup events. It outlines the environmental urgency of plastic pollution, provides a comprehensive planning checklist—covering site selection, volunteer recruitment, and safety—and offers strategies for minimizing the event's own environmental footprint. The guide emphasizes a "one planet" approach to systems-change and encourages participants to move beyond cleanups toward reducing single-use plastic consumption and advocating for policy changes.

• Plastic production has increased significantly, rising from 1.5 million tonnes in 1950 to 335 million tonnes in 2016, and is projected to double within the next 20 years.
• Plastic pollution severely impacts marine wildlife, with over 800 species affected by entanglement, habitat effects, or ingestion; it is estimated that 99% of all seabirds will have ingested plastic by 2050.
• In the United States, plastic waste management is inefficient, with only 9% of used plastic being recycled, while the remainder is littered, sent to landfills, or incinerated.
• WWF advocates for a "one planet" approach to stop the flow of plastic pollution into nature by 2030, arguing that simply substituting plastic with other materials like paper may merely shift environmental impacts rather than eliminate them.
• Successful cleanup events require detailed planning, including selecting sites based on ecological fragility, coordinating waste disposal with municipalities, and recruiting volunteers at least 30 days in advance.
• To ensure cleanups do not contribute to further waste, organizers are encouraged to provide waste-free refreshments, use reusable gloves, and utilize the CleanSwell app to contribute data to a global plastic pollution database.

APA

Hobson, S. (n.d.). The Cleanup Guide. WWF International. https://www.worldwildlife.org/documents/1168/3h17je0kfi_WWF_Guide_to_Plastics_Cleanups.pdf

Chicago

Hobson, Sam. The Cleanup Guide. WWF International, n.d. https://www.worldwildlife.org/documents/1168/3h17je0kfi_WWF_Guide_to_Plastics_Cleanups.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Hobson |first1=Sam |title=The Cleanup Guide |publisher=WWF International |url=https://www.worldwildlife.org/documents/1168/3h17je0kfi_WWF_Guide_to_Plastics_Cleanups.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{hobsonndcleanup, author = {Hobson, Sam}, title = {{The Cleanup Guide}}, institution = {WWF International}, url = {https://www.worldwildlife.org/documents/1168/3h17je0kfi_WWF_Guide_to_Plastics_Cleanups.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }