Community Clean-Up Day A Success

Approximately 120 people signed up to help pick up trash on the town roadways Saturday morning April 29. Although the day was showery and cool, it didn’t deter most of the participants from coming out and picking up litter. With the help of the Town Public Works crew and USA Recycling, the bags of trash deposited at designed signs around town were picked up by early afternoon. According to USA Recycling, volunteers picked up almost 2,500 pounds of trash in three hours.

The volunteers, many decked out in neon green recycling shirts, boots, raingear, gloves and good humor, filled two types of trash bags – one for regular litter and one for recyclables, as they scoured many of the roads in town. There were even several participants who collected trash on earlier weekends because they weren’t available for the planned event. The biggest surprise for many was the multitude of nip bottles found EVERYWHERE!! For example, Krystal Holmes’ scout troop, who cleaned up around Ebb’s Corner, picked up 3,000 nip bottles in a couple of hours. According to Patch, Suffield has received an allocation of $7,402 for the five cent “eco fee” on each nip bottle sold from October 2022 to March 2023 as part of an environmental stewardship program by Connecticut’s wine and spirits industry. During that six months 148,040 nip bottles were sold, and many, it seems, end up on the side of the roads.

Volunteers were invited to Spaulding School at noon for pizza and cake and about 60 people showed up to enjoy the food and share stories of what they had picked up that morning. Most remarked about how the areas in town that were more open and not around residences were the most problematic. Thanks to First Selectman Colin Moll for his support for the project and to the Town Sustainability Council for their work to help make this happen. Thanks as well to Suffield Public Schools for the use of Spaulding School cafeteria.