Raising Awareness Together: Keep Sweden Tidy, the Swedish Consumers’ Association, and Västerås Municipality

Since 1992, Västerås City Festival has brought the heart of Västerås to life each summer with three days of music, food, and fun-filled family activities. This year’s festival, held from 27–29 June 2025, was no exception!

As part of the Local Action Day initiative under the BALTIPLAST project, three Swedish project partners—Keep Sweden Tidy, the Swedish Consumers’ Association, and Västerås Municipality—teamed up on June 27^th to inspire festivalgoers and raise awareness about littering and plastic consumption.

Families and visitors of all ages were invited to take part in a range of interactive activities, from litter-picking and waste-sorting games to face painting and a meet-and-greet with a local music artist. The event sparked children’s imagination as they proudly wore their face paint, collected litter, and discussed the impact of plastic waste. Environmental superheroes in action!

During the event, our estimate is that we engaged approximately 150-200 people. This includes all people who stopped by and engaged with us directly about the project in some form. The most common litter items collected during the event were single-use packaging (mostly plastic) such as ice cream and candy wrappers as well as tobacco products like cigarette butts and snus. Since the event took place on a public street in the centre of Västerås within the festival grounds, we formed small groups and ventured through the busy streets and surrounding central areas to pick up litter.

The Swedish Consumers’ Association also hosted an interactive exhibition stand, where visitors were encouraged to reflect on plastic use in daily life. Through a hands-on voting activity, participants placed various plastic items on a visual scale ranging from “necessary” to “unnecessary,” sparking thoughtful conversations and personal insight. Many even took the opportunity to sign up on the spot via a QR code for the Plastkampen behavioural change programme developed to support households in reducing their SUP consumption.

The event was well-received by festivalgoers and demonstrated how events can serve as effective platforms for raising awareness around littering and plastics.

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