Brussels Scientology Community Backs City’s 6th Annual Cleanliness Day Mandate

A team of volunteers from the Brussels branch of the Churches of Scientology for Europe honor the goal to raise awareness of, and participate energetically in, keeping their city clean.

Maintaining cleanliness in a city is no simple task. It requires a sustained effort from everyone to be effective.

That was the underlying message of Brussels’ Cleanliness Day, held annually in Belgium each spring since 2009. And Scientologists, armed with plastics bags and trash pick-up implements, joined in to do their part and promote the importance of caring for the environment.

These were members of the Church’s The Way to Happiness club, which promotes the 21 precepts of the nonreligious moral code from which they take their name. “Safeguard and improve your environment” is one of its precepts.

"Care of the planet begins in one’s own front yard"

“The idea that one has a share in the planet and that one can and should help care for it may seem very large and, to some, quite beyond reality. But today what happens on the other side of the world, even so far away, can affect what happens in your own home,” it reads.

“Care of the planet begins in one’s own front yard,” the code continues. “It extends through the area one travels to get to school or work. It covers such places as where one picnics or goes on vacation. The litter which messes up the terrain and water supply, the dead brush which invites fire, these are things one need not contribute to and which, in otherwise idle moments, one can do something about.”

For their cleanup effort, the volunteers chose the streets and parks around their Church.