TALLINN, May 4 (Xinhua) -- A citywide beach action day Clean Beach was held on Saturday in the Estonian capital as part of the program of the Urban Maintenance Month from April 14 to May 15 to raise environmental awareness of citizens.
The event of the communal work day includes cleaning the beach area and the seaside park, various recreational games, prize drawings and environmental discussions.
Tallinn Deputy Mayor Vadim Belobrovtsev told Xinhua that "the event started 11 years ago in 2008. It was a big campaign, not only in Estonia".
Similar beach cleaning events are held in Helsinki and Turku in Finland on the same day, according to the Tallinn city government.
Belobrovtsev expected Tallinn to become the European Green Capital city in the future through such environmental campaign efforts.
The deputy mayor also talked about the importance of China's role in environment protection.
"It's very important for China as well to become one of the environment protective countries. China, as such a big country with the huge number of population, is ready to take care of the green environment, the impact to the whole world will be huge," he said.
Dmitry Krutoy, Head of the Sector for Environmental Projects of the St. Petersburg city government, was present at the Tallinn Clean Beach campaign. He told Xinhua that the traditional international environmental campaign devoted to well-being of the Baltic Sea environment is scheduled to be held on May 18 in St. Petersburg, Russia.
"We cooperate together the Russian Federation, Estonia and Finland. This action takes place in different cities of St. Petersburg, Tallinn, Helsinki and Turku. Since 2014, it is already the sixth such action to join our forces in an environmental way to fight against the problems of waste in the water areas in the Gulf of Finland, in the Baltic Sea. Only together can we solve it," said Krutoy.
Krutoy also praised China's efforts in environment protection, saying "I understand that China pays more and more attention to environment these days compared to several, 10, 20 or 30 years ago. There are more and more transports environmentally friendly, more and more environmental technologies are also implemented in China".
Under the slogan "Let's burnish our city!", the 28th Maintenance Month campaign in Tallinn includes cleaning days, communal work and hazardous waste collection campaigns, focusing on raising public environmental awareness. The campaign first started in 1991, said the Tallinn city government.
