​On the occasion of the recent celebration of Earth Day, 71 volunteers from Unipetrol and Česká Rafinérská set out to clean up the area around the Nechranice Valley Dam and the Krušné Hory Mountains. In total, volunteers put in more than 500 man hours of work and filled hundreds of garbage bags cleaning up and disposing of wind-fallen trees and branches.

“For the spring cleanup of the area around the Nechranice Valley Dam this year, the event was expanded to include volunteers from the companies Unipetrol and Česká Rafinérská. We want to thank the volunteers from both of these companies for their conscientious efforts. Almost 350 bags of different kinds of waste were collected, which can be considered a very respectable performance,” said Miloš Marek from the North Bohemian Section of the Czech Fishing Union (ČRS SÚS).

“The number of employees from Unipetrol and Česká Rafinérská, which are involved in volunteer work, has been increasing every year. What remains unchanged is the enthusiasm with which the volunteers approach their work for our supported non-profit organizations,” commented the Manager of the Public Relations Department of Unipetrol, Mikuláš Duda. He added that: “in addition to the waste that were cleaned up, with which the volunteers filled 350 garbage bags from the Nechranice Valley Dam area, they also found a lot of other assorted garbage – including several tires, an umbrella, a washing machine drum and even an old hourglass.” 
 
Věra Koubová, the PR Coordinator for Česká Rafinérská, noted that: “the employees of Česká Rafinérská also participate each year in the spring cleaning of the park area around the Veltrusy Chateau, which they did again this year. We had 10 volunteers helping out, with their efforts being coordinated by staff from the chateau.”

The volunteer days of the companies Unipetrol and Česká Rafinérská have been organized on a joint basis since 2012. As part of each year’s event, the employees get to spend one work day each year helping out selected non-profit organizations, which are located in the Ústí Region. This year, the volunteer program was held as part of the globally recognized Earth Day celebrations, with the obvious theme being environmental protection. The volunteer days were organized in cooperation with the North Bohemian Section of the Czech Fishing Union and the Foundation for the Restoration of the Krušné Hory Mountains

This year’s volunteer day wasn’t the only event of the year organized in connection with the celebration of Earth Day. In mid-April, Unipetrol and local members of the Czech Fishing Union (ČRS SÚS) jointly released 300 kg of newly hatched fish into the Bílina River. This was part of the ongoing cooperative efforts of both parties to restore native fish stocks, which has been going on since 2010. Over this period, Unipetrol has contributed CZK 325,000 to support the work of the ČRS SÚS.