BLAKESLEE, MONROE COUNTY (WBRE/WYOU) — It's an 'Earth Day' celebration that brings together volunteers across our region. To get outside and 'pick up' the Poconos.
It’s the busy work before the clean-up at the Monroe County Municipal Waste Management Authority in Blakeslee.
“Last year alone, we had more than 500 volunteers come out. They cleaned over 170 miles of roadway and picked up more than 1,000 bags of trash,” says Brianna Strunk.
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Bags are being filled with t-shirts, gloves, safety vests, and trash bags to prepare hundreds of volunteers for the annual spring ‘Pick Up the Poconos’ event on Saturday, April 26th.
“It’s not like you’re cleaning up a community that’s far away from you, there are 20 plus locations so chances are you’ll be cleaning up the same roads that you take to work, your backyard areas, places that you call home.”
Working alongside Waste Authority Executive Director Mike Stettler, Strunk explains how since 2018 – the event part of its clean-up campaign has contributed to collecting more than 46,000 bags of trash from roadways across Pike, Wayne, Monroe, and Carbon counties.
Now these are common items found at litter cleaning events and many of these take several years to decompose. The cigarette butt takes anywhere from one to five years, however, the plastic water bottle can take anywhere up to 450 years to decompose.
Stettler says litter could cost someone up to 1,000 dollars in fines. But that doesn’t stop it from happening and he’s thankful to be part of the cleanup.
“There’s never a shortage unfortunately of litter in the Poconos and we’d like to see that lessen, but this is great for community involvement, as well as getting that garbage picked up and appropriately disposed of.”
Registration will be open through Friday for groups or individuals to sign up for the litter cleaning event. To help keep the beauty of the Poconos clean and green.
With Friday’s 5:00 p.m. deadline to register for Pick Up the Poconos approaching, you can head here to sign up.
