March 15 marked Parami University’s first Digital Cleanup Day, initiated by Dr. Romina de Jong, advisor of the Parami University Environmental Club. The Myanmar Digital Cleanup Day was founded in 2023, when Romina, together with Parami President Dr Kyaw Moe Tun, thought of a project to foster environmental change agents at Parami University.
As an online university, what makes more sense than focusing on our digital practices? Live streaming, storing emails, files, and videos online—it all consumes energy, and data centers run nonstop to keep everything accessible. It is estimated that by the end of 2025, 7% of the total global CO2 emissions will be due to digital sources!
What if everyone were aware that digital waste does harm, too?
Digital Cleanup Day, a global initiative launched by Let's Do It World, aims to reduce the carbon footprint of digital practices by organizing an annual event to clean up our digital spaces. In 2023, over 380,000 participants from 105 countries deleted 12.7 million GB of digital waste, preventing at least 1,742 tons of CO₂ emissions. Myanmar joined once (in 2021), and we wanted to put Myanmar back on the map in 2025!
The Parami Digital Cleanup Day team 2025 consisted of Dr. Romina de Jong, Myo Myint Maung (Environmental Club), Mason, Pedro, and Shune Lai Thida (Parami staff). They coordinated with the global organizers, reached out to partner organizations, and recruited volunteer team leaders. The team leaders' task was to bring a team of motivated people to the event on March 15 so we could clean up digital waste on our own devices together.
The Myanmar Digital Cleanup Day Facebook page went live in the first week of March, and by the 15th, it had over 90 likes and more than 200 followers! People committed to the cause shared video messages with us: Dr Kyaw Moe Tun (President of Parami University), Phone Nyet Aung (Parami student), Anny Lin (Parami academic advisor), and Chit Thet Mon Khin (volunteer team leader). Check more on their website: Digital Cleanup Day MM Facebook page. With these motivational and insightful video messages and other messaging on the Facebook page, people became aware of digital pollution and what they could do about it—such as joining the Digital Cleanup Day Myanmar!
On March 15, the organizing team, 19 volunteer team leaders, and partner organizations brought together 186 participants from Parami University, Lann, Cherry Myay Academy, and many other institutions. Excitingly, about 25 educators of the Padauk Classroom were also present for an in-person event in Mandalay. Dr. Kaung Htet Swan of EHS Myanmar, Dr. Romina de Jong, and Shaw La Mun of the Environmental Club of Parami kindly provided the opening remarks of the Digital Cleanup Day Myanmar. After Dr. Romina de Jong and Shune Lai Thida shared some additional knowledge, they discussed digital pollution and best practices for reducing digital waste. Everyone then went into different rooms with their teams to delete digital waste.
The organizing team is calculating the number of gigabytes we jointly deleted and will share that on our Facebook page and Parami Digital Cleanup Day website here. Dr. Romina de Jong said, “We hope everyone who joined this year will maintain the newly learned sustainable practices and, more importantly, spread the message so that others start doing the same! We thank our partner organizations, volunteer team leaders, participants, and everyone who helped organize and support this year’s Parami Digital Cleanup Day.”
Did you miss it? No worries—anytime is a good time to clean up and reduce your carbon footprint! To put Myanmar on the map as one of the leading countries reducing its digital carbon footprint, report your total deleted gigabytes to the global organizers here (until April 15, 2025).
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