PA CleanWays has organized nearly 29,000 volunteers to cleanup 547 illegal dumps, conduct 1,226 litter cleanups and remove over 7,360 tons of trash from the state’s roads, trails, waterways, State Parks and Forests and educated over 221,600 children about littering and dumping over the last 15 years. But, there’s more work to be done.

That was the key message delivered by Karen McCalpin of PA CleanWays, the featured speaker at the Joint Legislative Air and Water Pollution Control and Conservation Committee’s Environmental Issues Forum this week.

PA CleanWays illegal dump surveys in just eight counties have documented over 1,018 dump sites containing over 4,000 tons of trash. And 671 more sites were documented on State Park and Forest lands as part of the Forest Lands Beautification Program sponsored by the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources.

These dumps not only catch on fire and pollute streams, they act as breeding grounds for disease carrying mosquitoes.

And the problem is just not in rural areas. The City of Philadelphia spends over $5 million every year cleaning up litter and dumping and enforcing anti-dumping laws.

Trash not only costs money to cleanup, it negatively affects property values, ruins hunting and fishing areas decreasing tourism and trash often invites other criminal activities in communities because it is viewed as evidence that people just don’t care.

PA CleanWays works to cleanup and keep areas clean through several core programs: organizing community cleanups and monitoring sites after they are clean; beautifying areas and creating physical barriers to dumping; an adoption program that lets individuals and groups adopt local areas to keep them clean; organizing events to collect hard to dispose of or recycle items to deter dumping; and education programs which create awareness in communities about the harm illegal dumping can do.

By creating effective partnerships, PA CleanWays has helped spread its efforts across the state.

Through the Department of Environmental Protection and as a founding member of Keep Pennsylvania Beautiful, PA CleanWays has created anti-dumping education programs, conducted cleanups, created local county chapters and helped manage programs like the Great PA Cleanup and the Clean Our Anthracite Lands and Streams Project.

With the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, PA CleanWays helped cleanup illegal dumps through the Forest Lands Beautification Program.

PA CleanWays partnered with the Western Pennsylvania Watershed Program which helped fund county surveys of illegal dumps and watershed cleanups.

What does the future hold? PA CleanWays “Campaign to Clean the Commonwealth” would extend its programs across the state.

They presently have formal chapters in 21 counties, primarily in western and central Pennsylvania, but operated programs in 57 of Pennsylvania’s 67 counties.

They would like to create a Comprehensive Illegal Dump Survey Report for the entire Commonwealth to document illegal dumps which would create a local focus for organizing more volunteers to deal with these problems.

Completing illegal dump surveys in all 67 counties would take about five years.

With the appropriate financial support, PA CleanWays believes it can annually coordinate 25 to 35 high priority cleanups across the state in collaboration with other nonprofit and government agencies.

McCalpin closed her presentation with this quote - “It is said that the activist is not the one who says the river is dirty, the activist is the one who cleans it up.”

A complete copy of McCalpin’s presentation is available online.

For more information visit the PA CleanWays website or send email to Karen McCalprin at: kmccalpin@pacleanways.org or call 724-836-4121.

The next Environmental Issues Forum will be held on June 12 and will feature a presentation by Jim MacKenzie, Octoraro Native Plant Nursery, entitled, “Going Native – Opportunities for Using Native Plants in Pennsylvania.”

NewsClip: DEP Expands Coal Country Anti-Dumping Program

4/7/2006