Keep Keeping America Beautiful

During the spring and summer of 2009, more than 3 million volunteers worked tirelessly for 5.2 million hours during the 2009 Great American Cleanup organized by the nonprofit group Keep America Beautiful.

How many times have you been out and about and seen litter in a driveway, a tree or peaking from a bush? What do you do about it? Keep America Beautiful has been picking it up since 1953. And their mission is to engage individuals to take greater responsibility for improving their community environments.

Here are some amazing statistics from the 2009 Great American Cleanup:

• There were an astounding 30,000 events across 32,000 locations.
• 64 million pounds of litter and debris were removed from public lands and rights-of-way, including 95,000 acres of parks and public lands, nearly 9,000 miles of rivers, lakes and shorelines, over 10,000 acres of wetlands, and 7,800 miles of hiking, biking and nature trails.
• 4,750 illegal dumpsites were remediated.
• More than 243 million plastic (PET) bottles were collected for recycling, many through school-based programs.
• More than 6.9 million pounds of electronics were collected for recycling.
• Volunteers kept 14.5 million pounds of aluminum and steel out of landfills through their collection efforts.
• 870,000 tires were collected for recycling.
• 36 million pounds of newspaper were collected for recycling.
• 2.3 million flowers and bulbs were planted

I really appreciate that one of Keep America Beautiful’s Guiding Principles is Individual Responsibility. That is what I’m teaching my children. If you see litter on the sidewalk, pick it up. We are all responsible for our communities, our environment and our own quality of life.

To join the Great American Cleanup and let green start with you, visit www.kab.org.

Wendy Gabriel is a green living freelance writer, her work has been published by the Chicago Sun-Times, Atlanta Journal Constitution, Reuters and Fox News. She is the owner of My Green Side.org, a columnist for Examiner.com and a weekly on-air contributor to The Christopher Gabriel Program. You can listen to her Wednesdays on AM970 WDAY where she talks about Simple Tips for Green Living.

photo credit: DavidK-Oregon

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