OREANDA-NEWS. On 06 May 2009 was announced, that on the Earth Day, celebrated on April 22, volunteers from L'viv high schools and business organizations under the auspices of L'viv regional organization of the All Ukrainian ecology league, ecological club Kryla nadiyi, with the assistance of L'viv Archeparchy of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church (UGCC) and OKKO filling stations network conducted the campaign Earth Day and me, during which the park on the St. George's hill (around St. George's Cathedral) in L'viv was cleaned up.

Generally, over 80 students of ecology and environmental protection department of L'viv Polytechnic National University, representatives of ecology league, ecological club Kryla nadiyi, and Concern Galnaftogaz employees (OKKO filling stations network) as well took part in the campaign. All participants of the campaign were broken down into seven teams, and cleaning up process was conducted in the form of competition. Winners were awarded prizes from Concern Galnaftogaz and State bureau of environmental protection in L'viv and L'viv region.

According to the initiator of the campaign Olena Samsonenko, two cars of domestic garbage were removed from the garden, enormous amount of dry branchwood and shrubs was collected. According to the representatives of St. George's Cathedral, the help of the community in the cleaning up campaign was very appropriate, as soon as this garden is located near the motorway, which is used by thousands of L'viv inhabitants and guests of our city every day. Taking into account, that it is the highway, which directly connects the city centre with the airport, the guests of our city regularly saw thickets from the car windows. And it was almost in the city centre, near the pearl of our architecture and culture – St. George's Cathedral.

Since 1998, according to the Decree of the President of Ukraine the Environment Day is commemorated in our state on each third Saturday of April. On this day, citizens, public organizations and establishments perform measures, directed at the improvement of environmental conditions, cleaning of water sources, planting of greenery, the cleaning up of areas and spread of ecological knowledge. In 2009, the Environment Day was commemorated on the 18th of April, and on the 22nd of April the whole world commemorated Earth Day.

Earth Day is the public initiative, open for engagement of any persons, collectives and organizations. For the first time, such "single" campaign took place on 22 April 1970 in the USA. Its success inspired the initators of the campaign, and since then the commemoration has become regular. The tradition of Earth Day commemoration – the carrying out of various measures, called for inducing people to be more attentive to the fragile and vulnerable environment on planet Earth. Earth Day is the day of responsibility to our planet, responsibility to people, which live on it, and to the nature, of which we are the part.

All of us live on the same planet, and, by polluting nature, primarily we harm ourselves and those generations, which will live after us. That is why on this occasion let's take at least one step towards improvement of the state of environment. Everybody must define this step for himself. On this day, someone will give up trip by the transport, someone will plant a tree, and the others will finally clean the garbage on their own yards. But together we will make the environment cleaner, we will not forget about its protection and conservation in future.