Tommy Klein, from the Netherlands, loves to ride his bike. One time, he became disappointed by the state of the river bank in his town. No one seemed to have any intention of clearing up the huge amount of garbage that had piled up there. So he decided to deal with the problem on his own. Every morning he would get up thirty minutes early in order to go fill up one bag of waste. Tommy put up a few photos on Facebook and in turn, 180 people came to his aid.

This is his story.

“Every day I go for a ride on my bike. I like this place — if you don’t count the garbage. The whole of the embankment is covered in waste from people who’ve had picnics there.”

“One time I became so tired of looking at it, I decided to deal with the problem myself.”

“It took me 30 minutes to fill up one bag of waste.”

“But one bag didn’t solve the problem. So I promised myself that I would fill up a bag every day.”

“In a week I’d gathered 20 bags, and one part of the river bank was completely transformed.”

“I told my friends about it on Facebook, and they told theirs. Soon I’d found 180 people from my town who wanted to help me clean up the river bank.”

This is what I’d told them: “All it takes is 30 minutes, and you’ll be surprised how good you feel afterwards. Because it’s very important.”

“Here’s the last bag of garbage.”

“I wanted to convey to everyone the simple idea that gathering up even just one bag of garbage a day can help.”

“After the area had been completely cleaned up, this bird made a nest for itself there.”

We’ve all seen the dirt on our streets, in our parks and forests, and around our river banks. It all starts with you — don’t drop litter or wait for someone else to pick it up. Instead, follow this guy’s example. He did great!