Cleaning Day is a day of celebration for friends of flea markets and recycling. The neatest festival of the year changes cities into huge flea markets. Cleaning Day started in Finland in spring 2012, and is now taking place all over the country twice a year. It is a day of celebration for friends of flea markets and recycling. The neatest festival of the year changes cities and neighborhoods into huge flea markets and marketplaces. Anyone can offer their second hand items up for sale on the streets, yards and at home, as well as make the best finds of the day. The idea of Cleaning Day is to make recycling easy and create vivid and responsible urban culture. Cleaning Day does not have an official organizer, all participants are organizers of their own events. Everyone is responsible for cleaning up after themselves. People can announce their sales spot by signing it up on the Siivouspäivä map page. One can participate in Siivouspäivä anywhere in the world. However, the team behind Siivouspäivä operates from Helsinki. The first Cleaning Day took place on May 2012. Nowadays, Cleaning Day takes place twice a year, on the last full week of May on Saturday and on the last Saturday of August. This year Cleaning Day is also getting international. Cleaning Day will be next organised on May 24th 2014.

1. TAKING PART IN
A set of tips on how to bring
the Cleaning Day to your neighborhood

2. ABOUT THESE
TIPS
What is Cleaning Day?
How to participate in Cleaning Day?
How to get started?
What to take into consideration?
How to take the day to a next level;
how to spread the word and activate people?
What kind of material and support we, the people
behind the concept of Cleaning Day give you?
We made these tips because we want to share
our knowledge, inspire you
and make participating to
Cleaning Day as easy as possible.
This is a set of guidelines and tips to help and support you
to bring the Cleaning Day to your neighborhood.
This set of tips answers to these questions:
Example
from
FINLAND
We give you examples on how
Cleaning Day is done in Helsinki.
These are examples you can get inspired
from, but you can be creative and find your
own ways to make the day happen.

3. THIS IS
CLEANING DAY
Cleaning Day started in Helsinki, spread all over Finland and you can also
make it happen in your neighborhood.
The idea is that during one day anyone can set up a flea market
stand anywhere they want to: in their home, street or a park.
Cleaning Day was originally born on Facebook in spring 2012 from conversation.
A group of volunteer and active people started to work on the
idea and the first Cleaning Day was organized in May 2012, just a few
months after the idea was first presented.
During the day, tens of thousands of people sell, shop and give away
secondhand items everywhere.
Fleamarket stands are marked on the map by the sellers at
www.cleaningday.org for everyone to find.
Cleaning Day takes place twice a year: every May on a Saturday
week 21 and every last Saturday in August.
Cleaning Day is created by all the people participating to the day. There is
no single organizer, everyone act as event organizer just by participating.
At the end of the day everyone cleans after themselves.
Cleaning Day is a neat day.
Cleaning Day is a new day of celebration
for friends of secondhand and urban culture.
Cleaning Day turns cities into giant
secondhand markets, where anyone can
sell or give away their old things,aswellas
make the neighborhood’s best finds.
The idea of Clening Day is to make recycling easy
- one man’s trash is another man’s treasure -
as well as creating dynamic and responsible
urban culture.
Click here
for more info
Anyone can participate to Cleaning Day!

4. PICTURES Here are some pictures from the
past Cleaning Days in Helsinki.
Pictures by: Jaakko Blomberg, Venla Helenius, Milla Ruuska

5. HOW TO
PARTICIPATEIt is as simple as this:
Do you want to be more involved
in organizing the Cleaning Day?
Then keep reading!
Mark your spot on the map at
www.cleaningday.org.
It only takes a minute!
Set up your own fleamarket
stand during the Cleaning Day.
Don’t forget to clean and take
away your extra stuff at the
end of the day.

6. BRING CLEANING DAY TO
YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD
Activate people. Tell your friends and ask them to joint he day with you.
With friends it’s more fun!
Spread the word and promote the day. In social media, press releases,
printed posters etc.
Translate and localize the Cleaning Day website to your language.
Contact us for the material.
Find out about permits and possible restrictions for the use of urban spaces.
What to take into consideration? Could you make the day happen in
your whole city or the whole country?
The following pages give you more detailed information on
what you can do to bring Cleaning Day to your neighborhood!
To get started, consider about these things:
Partners to help divide the work and possible expences.
Further considerations:
Remember, you can always contact us
if you need more help or advise!
Our contact informations are at
the end of these tips.

7. ACTIVATE
PEOPLE
Why would people participate?
There are meany reasons why people participate to diffe-
rent events and activities, but the most important are the
rewards they get. Participating to Cleaning Day can be
rewarding in many aspects for just a little effort. You can
for example..
...get rid off the things you don’t need anymore in a sustainable
way
...get money from selling your things
..spend the day with your friends
...enliven your neighborhood, get to know your neighbors and
meet new people
...explore a city turned into a huge secondhand market
...shop treasures at affordable prices and make great bargains
...and most important of all, have fun!
The people in Helsinki behind the
concept of the Cleaning Day were
very exited and inspired about the
idea of organizing a fleamarket
day all over the city.
Seeing how exited they were, got
more and more people to join the
day and the event grew bigger
and bigger.
How to activate people??
Start with your friends. Think about who do you know
that could be interested? Contact them and ask them to
join you. Tell them about the rewards they could get. And
ask them to spread the word forward.
Use social media! It is an effective way to find people
with similar interests.
You can start with your own neighborhood. Tell your
neighbors and organize a neigborhood carnival
together with them!
And remember to mark your fleamarket stand on the
map. That also works as a way of activating more and more
people. The popularity of the day feeds itself; the more
people are setting up fleamarket stands, the more people
get curious about what’s happening and join the day too.
Example
from
FINLAND

8. SPREAD
THE WORD
Set up a Facebook, Twitter or other social media page or group. It could be for
example a Facebook group for your own neighborhood. Use the power of social
media where critical masses ar easily reached.
Ask your friends to join and spread the word. Your friends are likely to be into
same things as you.
Find something similar in your own city from Facebook or other social media,
that meets the values and the idea of the Cleaning Day. Contact the people, ask
them to join and spread the word.
Consider translating the Cleaning Day website to your own language and add
some local content. We give you the materials, you only need to do the trans-
lations and we’ll do the rest!
Spread printed posters around your neighborhood and city.
Send press releases to your local newspapers to get more visibility.
In Finland it all started from a Facebook
page that got over 5000 likes in a few days.
Press got interested and that way the first
Cleaning Day got more visibility.
We offer free materials for you to use.
Look at the examples at the end of these tips.
Here are some simple tips how you can promote the Cleaning Day.
The great thing is that promoting doesn’t require any budget.
Example
from
FINLAND
CLICK
HERE!

9. TAKE OTHERS INTO
CONSIDERATION
Tell your neighbors, residental association or housing company about
your plans to organize the Cleaning Day in your yard or neighborhood.
Think if there is something you need to do for setting up a flea market
stand during one day in the urban areas such as parks. Ask your local
muncipalities to make sure it is not a problem.
Take into consideration the cultural differences and local ways of using
the urban spaces.
Remember to clean up after yourself and ask others to do it too.
The first time in Helsinki the Cleaning Day
was organized very informally and everything
went fine. The second time we agreed with
the Helsinki City public works department
to make the day more official.
Cleaning Day website works currently as
a tool for the city officials to see what is
happening and where. This is possible if
people mark their selling spots on the map.
There might be some restrictions you should take into consideration.
These might vary very much depending on the country and city.
To make sure you are respectfull, you can do for example this:
Example
from
FINLAND

10. PARTNERS AND
FUNDING
We take care of the web service and other materials and facilities expen-
ses. If you want to print posters and spread the word on Facebook,
go ahead! For bigger marketing investments, you can try to get partners
and funding.
Please note that that all the commercial partners should support
Cleaning Day values and the Cleaning Day brand. Please always
contact Yhteismaa in matters concerning partnerships and funding.
Our contact information is at the end of these tips.
In Helsinki a non profit organization called
Yhteismaa NGO (www.yhteismaa.fi/en/)
is organising the Cleaning Day
and some side events.
In other cities in Finland the local
people are in charge.
The important thing to point out is that:
You don’t need any money for making
the Cleaning Day happen!
Since the Cleaning Day has no official organizer, each
participant themself acts as an event organizer, and the
day is happening because of the people participating!
Example
from
FINLAND
Click here
to read more
about our
values

11. Cleaning Day website that you
can localize to your own language
and culture.
The map on our website
The Cleaning Day
Visual identity
Customizable Templates
for posters, press releases,
pricetags and letters
CLICK
HERE!
CLICK
HERE!
To make it as easy for you as
possible, we have a lot of open
and free materials under the
concept of Cleaning Day for
you to use!
CLICK
HERE!
CLICK
HERE!
www. .org
COMMON
RESOURCES
In addition to these materials, we
can also support you by giving
you ideas on social media
updates and other concrete ways
to inpspire people.
Contact us for more information.

12. Right and Responsibility:
People have the right to do things in the urban space by themselves the way they
want to. The world is ours and we should be free to use public spaces freely. But we
should keep in mind that we have to take the responsibility and care of the spaces.
Cleaning Day is a neat day.
Community and Urban Culture:
The day is about community and doing things together. It is about spending the day
with your friends and neighbors. Let’s enliven our neighborhoods and create the day
together for all citizens.
Ecology:
One man’s trash is another man’s treasure. People today have too much stuff they
don’t need but someone else might treasure. Recycling and secondhand should
become a lifestyle and Cleaning Day is here to support that.
Co-Creation:
Cleaning Day is a do it yourself- and do it together-day. Anyone can participate to
Cleaning Day the way they want to and be creative in making it look like they want
to. Individuals may use the Cleaning Day logo and name freely, in the context of the
Cleaning Day. Co-creation is the word!
CLEANING DAY
PHILOSOPHY
Anyone can organize and participate to
Cleaning Day anyway and anywhere they
want to. But it is important to respect and
keep in mind the values that define the day.

13. CONTACT
US
tanja@
yhteismaa.fi
Is there something else you are wondering
about? Don’t hesitate to contact us.
We would love to hear about you
and help you with anything.
pauliina@
yhteismaa.fi
jaakko@
yhteismaa.fi
Please send us feedback on this set of tips.
These tips are still a work in process and
we will update them based on your feedback.Credits:
The Concept of the Cleaning Day is created by Yhteismaa NGO.
Ossi Pirkonen made the logo and visual identity.
Riina Oikari put together these guidelines
with the help of Yhteismaa and
Neea Laakso as a graphic advisor.