IN A TEAM FOR A CLEAN ENVIRONMENT
During the annual Kärcher Cleanup Days, teams of Kärcher employees around the world set out to clean up the area around their place of work. The focus here is on bodies of water - in line with the cooperation with the NGO One Earth - One Ocean, which has set itself the goal of ridding the oceans of plastic waste.
Employees around the world collect garbage
Plastic bottles, cigarette butts, tin cans - carelessly discarded waste pollutes parks, streets, rivers and forests. With the Kärcher Cleanup Days, Kärcher employees want to do something about it: Year after year, teams of volunteers around the world free their environment from waste. The occasion for these campaigns is World Cleanup Day. On Cleanup Days, hundreds of Kärcher employees come together every year to collect garbage. Equipped with grabber tongs and bin bags, they get to work and collect as much waste as possible. On the campaign days, up to 10 tons of waste are collected - an impressive figure that shows how much waste is carelessly disposed of in nature. From Peru to China and Kazakhstan, Switzerland, the Netherlands and Germany, over 30 Kärcher companies take part in the clean-up work every year.
The Kärcher team in the Netherlands was particularly creative and brought along specially built floating garbage cans to clear a river of garbage from canoes.
In China, the banks along the Yangtze River were cleaned during low water.
Kärcher employees collected over 300 kg of waste near the Georgian capital Tiblisi.
Collection action at waters
The collection campaigns mainly focus on cleaning inland waterways such as rivers and lakes. This is because a large proportion of the waste that is disposed of in nature ends up in our oceans sooner or later. The German Environment Agency states that about 80% of the waste in our oceans comes from inland. This pollution has serious effects on underwater wildlife and ultimately on us humans. As part of the “Social Hero” initiative of its Sustainability Strategy 2025, Kärcher is therefore working with its partners to combat marine pollution. It is important to Kärcher not only to provide financial support, but also to make its own contribution with the Kärcher Cleanup Days.
Against plastic waste in Cambodia
An important part of this commitment is the partnership with the One Earth - One Ocean organization. Kärcher has been cooperating with the NGO since 2020. It all started with beach cleanups. During these campaigns, volunteers removed waste from stretches of coast and water. Since 2023, the company has been supporting a project on the Mekong River in Cambodia together with One Earth - One Ocean and the COMPED organization. A hot spot team consisting of six people collects up to six tons of waste from the river every month.
