The Environment Chronicle

World Cities Day was established on 27 December 2013 by the General Assembly in it’s resolution A/RES/68/239, in which the General Assembly “decides to designate 31 October, beginning in 2014, as World Cities Day, invites States, the United Nations system, in particular UN-Habitat, relevant international organizations, civil society and all relevant stakeholders to observe and raise awareness of the Day […]“ The general theme of World Cities Day is Better City, Better Life. The first World Cities Day on 31 October 2014 was hosted by Shanghai Municipality, in the People’s Republic of China.

The Ocean Conservancy, formerly known as the Center for Marine Conservation, established and maintains the annual International Coastal Cleanup Day (ICC). The first cleanup was in 1986 in Texas, and the campaign currently involves all of the states and territories of the United States and more than 100 countries around the world. The ICC is the largest volunteer environmental data-gathering effort and associated cleanup of coastal and underwater areas in the world. It takes place every year on the third Saturday in September. In 2013, over 648,015 volounteers across the world participated in the ICCC. They removed about 12,329.332 pounds of debris from more than 12,914 miles of coasts, shorelines, and underwater sites.