The Keep Pennsylvania Beautiful Alliance this week launched its effort to involve thousands of Pennsylvanians in picking up litter for the third annual Great PA Cleanup!.

Last year, 140,000 volunteers cleaned up more than 11,000 miles of roadways, 12,000 acres of parkland and 3,500 miles of streams.

Groups that register their cleanup events through the Great PA Cleanup website will be eligible for free disposal of the trash they collect at participating landfills, get a supply of gloves and safety vests and are eligible for entry into reward contests in Pennsylvania and nationally to thank volunteers and groups for their participation.

Events must be registered by no later than April 20 to qualify.

The website also has materials to help promote cleanup events, identify resources in their county to help with anti-litter and dumping issues, register results, links to anti-litter education materials and much more.

Want to participate in an event? You can find one near you at the Great PA Cleanup website.

The featured cleanup this year will take place April 22, in conjunction with Earth Day, although the entire cleanup -- with a special emphasis on Audubon’s Important Bird Areas. – will be held from March 1 to May 31.

The formal kickoff of the 2006 Great PA Cleanup! was led by KPB co-chairs Environmental Protection Secretary Kathleen McGinty and Bill Heenan, Steel Recycling Institute.

Speaking at the Thomas W. Holtzman Elementary School in Susquehanna Township, Dauphin County, DEP Secretary Kathleen A. McGinty spoke to Megan Krot’s third-grade class.

“I need your help to clean up Pennsylvania. You can make a difference, whether it is in the neighborhoods where you live, the parks where you play, or the forests ‘Where The Wild Things Are,’” McGinty said, citing the popular children’s book by Maurice Sendak.

“Litter and illegal dumping affect everyone’s quality of life,” McGinty told the students while holding a rehabilitated great horned owl. “I want you to ask all your friends and every adult you know to get involved in this year’s Great Pennsylvania Cleanup.”

“It takes a shared commitment from residents, neighborhood groups, nonprofit organizations, government agencies and our state’s large and small businesses to prevent litter,” said William Heenan, co-chairman of Keep Pennsylvania Beautiful with McGinty. “Whether you join an existing cleanup or organize one of your own, every resident can help us succeed in making Pennsylvania a much more attractive place to live, work and play.”

This year’s cleanup includes a focus on Audubon Pennsylvania and its Important Bird Area program. Audubon Pennsylvania has identified 82 Important Bird Area sites encompassing more than 2 million acres of the state’s public and private lands. The voluntary IBA program combats threats to the most essential and vulnerable bird habitats through proactive habitat conservation measures.

“Reversing the damage litter and illegal dumping do to bird habitats is key to preserving Pennsylvania’s natural ecosystems,” Audubon Pennsylvania Executive Director Dr. Timothy D. Schaeffer told the class. “Through efforts such as the Great Pennsylvania Cleanup, we will maintain Pennsylvania’s wilderness and urban bird habitats so that one day you can show your grandchildren the white clouds of migrating Snow Geese as they stop in central Pennsylvania and the peregrine falcons hunting the skies above our downtowns.”

This year’s Great Pennsylvania Cleanup also features exciting incentives.

Everyone can visit the new Great Pa Cleanup website to enter drawings for six weekend vacations in some of Pennsylvania’s most scenic spots and to enter the national Keep America Beautiful sweepstakes for a Honda Accord hybrid-powered vehicle.

Keep Pennsylvania Beautiful is again playing a major role in the Great PA Cleanup.

Keep Pennsylvania Beautiful is supported and sponsored by a wide range of businesses, trade organizations, civic and environmental groups, and state and local government agencies.

The departments of Conservation and Natural Resources, Environmental Protection and Transportation are members of the Keep Pennsylvania Beautiful alliance. PennDOT supports the cleanup by providing participants with free gloves, safety vests and trash bags.

Last year, Keep America Beautiful presented PennDOT with one of six Keep America Beautiful/U.S. State Department of Transportation Partner Awards for its role in making the Great PA Cleanup a tremendous success.

Members of the Pennsylvania Waste Industries Association, also part of the Keep Pennsylvania Beautiful alliance, are again offering free landfill space to dispose of nonrecyclable waste collected during the cleanup.

PA CleanWays, a nonprofit group dedicated to fighting illegal dumping and litter, is leading the KPB alliance’s cleanup effort this year. PA CleanWays is coordinating all cleanup event registrations and collections reporting.

Here’s a list of organizations sponsoring Keep Pennsylvania Beautiful and the Great Pennsylvania Cleanup: AAA Mid-Atlantic; Audubon Pennsylvania; Best Buy;

departments of Conservation and Natural Resources, Environmental Protection and Transportation; County Commissioners Association of Pennsylvania; Cities: Allentown, Philadelphia and Pittsburgh; GreenTreks Network; Home Depot; Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries; Keep Lancaster Beautiful; Keep Philadelphia Beautiful; Keystone Sanitary Landfill; PA CleanWays;

Pennsylvania Association of Convention & Visitors Bureaus; Pennsylvania Builders Association; Pennsylvania Downtown Center; Pennsylvania Farm Bureau

Pennsylvania Food Merchants Association; Pennsylvania Horticulture Society; Pennsylvania Host Municipal Inspectors; Pennsylvania Organization of Watersheds and Rivers; Pennsylvania Parks and Forests Foundation; Pennsylvania Resources Council;

Pennsylvania Soft Drink Association; Pennsylvania State Association of Borough Managers; Pennsylvania State Association of Township Supervisors; Pennsylvania Waste Industries Association; Pocono Mountains Vacation Bureau; Professional Recyclers of Pennsylvania; Schuylkill Keep It Pretty; Sierra Club of Pennsylvania; The Steel Recycling Institute; United States Steel; and Waste Management.

For information on the Great Pennsylvania Cleanup, and to find or register a cleanup event, visit the new Great Pa Cleanup website .

Interested individuals also can call toll-free at 1-888-548-8372 for more information.

2/10/2006