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Clean Up Litter in Your Own Community

The best way to go beyond just taking care of your own trash in the proper way is to take the time to clean up after those who don't, such as picking up improperly discarded items that you see as you move about your daily life - the plastic bag blowing in the street, the half-empty can of soda or cup of coffee that someone else left behind or anything else you see carelessly tossed aside - and disposing of it properly.

It is a simple, but powerful philosophy: If just one person picked up an empty can, bottle or cigarette butt each day for a year, there would be 365 less pieces of trash in the environment. Now imagine what would happen if 1,000, 10,000 or even 100,000 people a day did the same. Collectively, we could make a real impact on the litter problem.

No, you didn’t cause the problem but, you can show others you care enough to take the time to do something about it.

What else you can do.

You can take this type of effort to the next level by organizing a group ( or joining an already existing group) to take part in the "Adopt a Highway" campaign.

This program has been operating successfully since the mid 1980’s and has been adopted by communities nationwide. You may have seen the signs posted on the roadsides that say “The cleanup of this section of road/highway is sponsored by” then they put the name of the sponsoring company or organization.

The people who join these groups take a little time out of their personal lives to make sure that section of road is kept clean. This is a great way to help clean things up and it's small, yet important, acts like these that can be a big move toward living a “cleaner life”.