Keep PA Beautiful County Representatives and PennDOT Adopt a Highway County Coordinators, recently held a joint meeting in State College, PA. These two groups do a tremendous service for all PA residents in the effort they put forth in cleaning up litter.

Keep PA Beautiful reported, at the meeting, that they have completed all the county illegal dump surveys for Pennsylvania. The amount of trash estimated to be in just the illegal dumps that were identified, totals over 18,000 tons.

The groundwater of Pennsylvania, where the majority of us get our drinking water, is put at risk by this littering. Every time someone chooses to litter, verses recycling or putting garbage in its proper place, our groundwater is threatened.

Dick Ebeling, Manager of PennDOT’s Statewide Highway Beautification Program, stated that volunteers are cleaning 15,000 linear miles of state roads representing 35 percent of the state’s infrastructure. Shannon Reiter, Keep PA Beautiful Director, stated that KPB volunteers cleaned 12,534 miles of non-state road in 2012. These organizations are doing a great job, but they need everyone to help.

Here are some concrete ideas that we all should consider--

-- Don’t litter and if you see litter, bend over and pick it up;

-- Call your county PennDOT Adopt A Highway Coordinator and volunteer to help;

-- Contact your local Keep PA Beautiful Affiliate and offer to get involved; and

-- If you are involved with a Pennsylvania School, then KPB has a “Litter Free School Zone Program”  that you could start at your school.

The 2014 Great American Cleanup of Pennsylvania dates are March 1st to May 31st, 2014. The 2014 Pick It Up PA Days are set for April 12 to May 5th. From April 12 to May 5th, if you register your project with KPB, you can get free tipping fees at participating landfills and some clean up supplies such as gloves and bags.

Remember you have to pre-register your individual project and to do this you simply contact Michelle Dunn at KPB. Her phone number is 1-877-772-3673 ext. 113 or email her at mdunn@keeppabeautiful.org.

(Written By: James A. Clark, Extension Water Resources Educator, Renewable Natural Resources Extension Team, Penn State Extension, McKean County, and reprinted from Penn State Extension Watershed Winds newsletter.)

9/16/2013