World Cleanup Day, observed on September 20, provides an important opportunity to reflect on the meaning of environmental cleanup and its contribution to sustainable development.
The official 2026 theme, “From Clean Plates to Clean Cities,” focuses particularly on food waste and the need to promote cleaner, more sustainable and resilient communities.
For Dr. Abiola Bashorun, Coordinator, Climate-Smart Agronomy/Sustainability Programme, Nigeria & USA, however, the broader principle behind World Cleanup Day provides an opportunity to ask a deeper question: What does “cleaning up” really mean in societies where environmental damage extends far beyond litter and municipal waste?
According to Bashorun, in mining communities, cleanup can mean confronting contaminated soil, degraded waterways, abandoned pits, mine waste, erosion and landscapes that may no longer safely support the people who depend on them.
Abandoned mine lands can pose risks to human health and the environment, making proper investigation, characterization, remediation and restoration essential. As Bashorun argues, cleanup cannot simply mean planting trees, covering disturbed ground or making a damaged landscape appear green.
It must mean restoring environmental integrity and determining what the land can safely support in the future.
From Symbolic Cleanup to Environmental Responsibility
Bashorun notes that there is a temptation in sustainability discussions to move too quickly from environmental damage to attractive promises of green agriculture, aquaculture or agro-industrial development.
The science requires a more careful approach.
Not every former mining site can immediately become farmland. Depending on the minerals extracted, mining methods, geology and the nature of the environmental damage, soils and water may require detailed assessment and treatment before productive reuse can be considered.
Some sites may ultimately be suitable for agriculture. Others may be better suited to ecological restoration, forestry, renewable energy, conservation, recreation or other scientifically determined uses.
For Bashorun, that distinction is important.
The responsible sequence should be:
Assess → Remediate → Test → Restore → Determine Safe Land Use → Develop
Agriculture should come only where scientific testing establishes that the soil, water and wider environment are suitable for agricultural production.
Where Climate-Smart Agronomy Fits
This is where Climate-Smart Agronomy can become relevant, Bashorun explains, but it should not be confused with mine remediation itself.
Climate-smart agriculture is an approach aimed at sustainably improving agricultural productivity and incomes, strengthening resilience and adaptation to climate change, and, where possible, reducing or removing greenhouse-gas emissions.
Bashorun’s position is that its contribution should therefore come after, or alongside, proper environmental restoration where land has been scientifically determined to be suitable for productive use.
A properly rehabilitated mining landscape could, depending on site conditions, support activities such as agroforestry, carefully selected crop systems, soil rebuilding, watershed protection, tree establishment, controlled irrigation and other land uses capable of strengthening ecological and community resilience.
But, she stresses, this must be science-led, not slogan-led.
Mining Communities Must Not Inherit the Liabilities
For Bashorun, the larger issue is the development model we choose.
Mining can generate minerals, investment, employment and public revenue. But those benefits must be accompanied by environmental and social responsibilities that continue throughout the life of a mine and after extraction ends.
Communities should not be left with abandoned pits, damaged water systems, degraded ecosystems and unusable land after commercially valuable minerals have been removed.
Bashorun therefore advocates for post-mining planning to begin before mine closure, rather than after environmental damage has already become a legacy problem.
A credible approach should include baseline environmental data, mine-closure planning, financial provision for remediation, continuous monitoring, community participation, land and water rehabilitation, independent testing and a realistic post-mining economic plan.
The goal, she says, should not merely be to make a former mining site look green.
The goal should be to make it safe, stable and capable of supporting an environmentally appropriate future use.
From Extraction to Regeneration
This, Bashorun believes, is the connection World Cleanup Day should help us understand.
Cleaning up our cities is necessary. Reducing waste is necessary. Tackling food waste—the specific focus of World Cleanup Day 2026—is necessary.
But the principle of environmental responsibility must also extend to the land and water systems on which communities depend.
For mining regions, Bashorun’s proposed pathway is:
Extraction → Closure → Remediation → Restoration → Safe Productive Reuse
Where scientific assessment confirms agricultural suitability, Climate-Smart Agronomy can help turn restored land into a platform for food production, climate resilience, enterprise and local economic activity.
Where agriculture is not appropriate, other scientifically determined uses should be pursued.
That, Bashorun argues, is a more credible sustainability proposition than simply promising that every abandoned mine can become a farm.
As we mark World Cleanup Day 2026, the message from Dr. Abiola Bashorun, Coordinator, Climate-Smart Agronomy/Sustainability Programme, Nigeria & USA, is clear:
Clean what we pollute. Restore what we degrade. Test before we reuse. Protect communities before pursuing the next economic opportunity.
And where land can safely be returned to production:
Restore the Land. Protect the Water. Grow the Future.