By Keith Whitcomb Jr.
RUTLAND HERALD
MONTPELIER, Vt. — For this year’s Green Up Day, coordinators are challenging Vermonters to clean up every last mile of roadway. Or at least those roadways that are safe and legal to walk on.
“The Clean Every Mile challenge is what we’re working on this year and we’re hoping that it rallies even more volunteers than in the past,” said Kate Alberghini, executive director of Green Up Vermont. “Most towns do get out and clean all of their roads. This is just town roads, it doesn’t include the interstate of course or major routes because of safety concerns.”
Green Up Day is May 7, though, many people will pick up roadside trash early.
It was estimated that in 2021, approximately 22,000 people volunteered to pick up litter along the roadside. Had those folks been paid minimum wage, the cost would have been more than $500,000, according to Green Up Vermont. They cleaned about 75% of the state’s 13,000 miles of town-owned roads.
Alberghini hopes this year’s challenge to clean them all will drum up even more volunteers, bring communities together, and reduce the amount of litter overall.
“It gives people, our volunteer town coordinators specifically, the opportunity to rally a few more volunteers with this challenge,” she said. “Everybody likes a little competitive challenge so we thought we’d try and spice it up, have a little fun with it and support all of our volunteer town coordinators.”
Green Up Day got started 52 years ago and has become a spring tradition for many people. Like nearly everything else, it was disrupted by the coronavirus pandemic, declared in March 2020.
“I can’t tell you how many volunteers will be out there, but I can tell you that the excitement and the way people are approaching Green Up Day has been different since I started in 2019,” Alberghini said. “I haven’t gone through a non-COVID Green Up in a leadership role yet, so this is really fun and fascinating to me. People are trying to get back to having their breakfasts and their community luncheons and their potlucks, their barbecues afterwards, so there’s definitely more of a festive feel around this year and people are really excited to get out.”
Each town has a Green Up Day coordinator. Green Up Vermont’s website, greenupvermont.org, has a list of who those people are and how to contact them, along with a wealth of information about Green Up Day itself.
During the pandemic, the state saw an influx of new residents. Alberghini said she has reached out to real estate offices across Vermont to try to let newcomers know about Green Up Day.
“It’s not only for the physical greening up of Vermont but it’s also to welcome these newcomers into the community and introduce them and have them feel like they belong in their communities by having these events to go to or events to participate in,” Alberghini said.
In Barre Town, the level of interest in Green Up Day seems to be in line with previous years, said Town Manager Carl Rogers. About 23 entities have registered so far. This includes organizations and businesses, said Rogers. There’s a map and signup sheet at the town offices, he said, so people can avoid duplicating efforts.
Normally there’s a cookout held for Green Up volunteers, said Rogers, but this wasn’t done during the pandemic and since the normal Green Up Day coordinator left over the winter, there won’t be one this year, either. There will still be a raffle, though. Anyone who signs up through the town will be entered into a drawing for prizes.
“I have a stretch of road that I do and I’ve checked it out and compared to other years, it doesn’t seem too bad,” said Rogers about the amount of litter that’s out there. “It’s a stretch of road that’s isolated and tends to get a lot of dumping of big stuff from homes, and tires, and there’s not much of that this year, thankfully, but another stretch of road, it’s a state road, that I use, it seems like the litter is much heavier on that.”
The first Green Up Day began under Gov. Deane Davis. Green Up Vermont is a nonprofit organization tasked with reducing litter in the state and helping to facilitate Green Up Day. It also works in schools to educate children about litter and ways to go about reducing it.
“One thing we’re taking on year-round is education on reducing waste,” said Alberghini. “In the school systems, we’re teaching about the reduction of single-use plastics like water bottles. We were involved in the water bottle filling station grant that we have going on now that places 33 units in different municipalities throughout the state. It’s just planting different seeds of knowledge and how kids can feel empowered to make a difference that way.”
keith.whitcomb @rutlandherald.com
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