CHARLESTON, W.Va. (June 6, 2019) – More than
590,000 pounds of litter was removed from West Virginia’s public roads,
highways, and streams thanks to volunteer efforts this spring as part of the
state’s Adopt-A-Highway program, and the West Virginia Department of Environmental
Protection’s (WVDEP) Make It Shine program.
Numbers were recently finalized for the Make
It Shine and Adopt-A-Highway April cleanups. Both events rely heavily on
volunteer efforts for their success and this spring, more than 9,500 volunteers
participated in cleanups that yielded almost 300 tons of trash.
The Make It Shine cleanup ran the first two
weeks of April and brought in 5,654 volunteers. They participated in 189
projects that removed 371,078 pounds of litter from 319 miles of roadway, 132
miles of streams, and 48 illegal dumpsites. They also collected 1,988 discarded
tires.
The Adopt-A-Highway spring cleanup took place
on April 27. A total of 3,881 volunteers representing 451 groups hauled away
more than 220,000 pounds of litter and 481 tires from just over 1,000 miles of
state roads and highways.
For more WVDEP news and
information, go to www.dep.wv.gov. Also, connect with the agency on
all social media platforms. Follow @DEPWV on Twitter, Like us on Facebook
at https://www.facebook.com/depwv/, and find us on YouTube by
searching “Environment
Matters.”
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