Tuesdays for Trash

Sharona co-founded Tuesdays for Trash during the COVID-19 pandemic at first as a simple way to do something positive for her local community. The movement has since grown to 15 chapters with participants in more than 50 countries. Its mission is not only empowering participants to learn about the crisis in their own backyards but encouraging them to take action by picking up trash weekly for a cleaner and healthier home. Tuesdays for Trash is mobilising individuals across the globe to make intersectional behavioural changes that scale into collective solutions.

Sharona attended the One Young World Summit Manchester, 2022, and was able to connect with and be inspired by other young climate leaders, as well as young people working on similar issues. Sharona also fostered connections with Ambassadors in corporate spaces, exploring new avenues for scaling her work with Tuesdays for Trash through employee initiatives.

Tuesdays for Trash is responsible for removing over 57,000 pounds of waste across its chapters since it was founded. The movement is tackling the problem of inadequate municipal infrastructure in the short term, and it is instigating a wider systematic shift by creating a gateway into activism for the everyday person-- instilling accountability and awareness in the longer run. This has resulted in visible change such as within the Tel Aviv chapter where the beaches they’ve cleaned over two years remain clean. Tuesdays for Trash is continuously building the capacity of its members, while growing both its physical and online presence through targeted outreach in local languages. It is also active in developing a new waste management proposal in Israel, where Sharona has facilitated collaborations with Israeli, Jordanian and Palestinian climate activists through the EcoPeace Middle East programme.

“I really appreciated learning from other young leaders at One Young World. Additionally the business connections I was able to make, such as a conversation with liaisons at Starbucks that I followed up on and received interest in having Tuesdays for Trash be a philanthropic initiative for their employees. Being able to make those connections and understand that there's a lot of opportunity to continue to scale Tuesdays for Trash was extremely valuable for me.”