Great American Cleanup Reaches All 50 States

The Great American Cleanup, sponsored by Keep America Beautiful, Phi Theta Kappa's International Service Program partner, reached all 50 states in 2007, with 30,000 local events involving 2.8 million volunteers. The Great American Cleanup is an annual 12-week effort, held from March 1-May 31.

Great American Cleanup Managing Director Gail Cunningham also announced that the 2.8 million volunteers and attendees logged more than 7.7 million hours to improve their local community environments.

Among them were numerous Phi Theta Kappa chapters. Highlights of Society efforts include:

At Landmark College in Vermont, advisor David Mulholland reported that the chapter planted or distributed a total of 1,870 pine seedlings. The chapter also raised $500 for repairs and beautification to the local Boys and Girls Club, through a Walk/Run featuring a "Dash for Trash."

At Raritan Valley Community College in New Jersey, chapter members collected 160 pounds of litter, five pounds of plastic bottles and 300 pounds of clothing for reuse. At a school picnic, the chapter's collection cart with the slogan, "Don't be a sleaze, Recycle please," collected lots of attention - and glass and plastic items for recycling, according to chapter co-president Cheryl Pierson.

Members at Hudson County Community College in New Jersey cleaned and refurbished a neighborhood park, planting roses and other flowers. The chapter also plans to repaint a graffiti-covered wall. Neighborhood children and other volunteers joined the cleanup effort, chapter advisor Theodore Lai reported.

"We're grateful to our network of Affiliates and participating organizations, our millions of volunteers and our National Sponsors who help make the 30,000 clean-up, green-up, fix-up and recycling events happen in over 17,000 communities nationwide," said Cunningham, in a message to Phi Theta Kappa.

Overall clean-up efforts resulted in 200 million pounds of litter and debris removed from America's landscape, including 3,500 illegal dump sites and more than 10,000 abandoned vehicles. Great American Cleanup events improved some 178,000 miles of roadway (more than seven times around the world), 121,000 acres of parks and public lands, 7,000 miles of rivers, lakes and shorelines, and 3,900 miles of hiking, biking and nature trails equal to a winding trail stretching from Key West, Florida, to Seattle.

Recycling results were equally impressive, with participants reclaiming 70.6 million plastic bottles, 2.2 million tires, 22.4 million pounds of aluminum and steel, 592,000 pounds of wireless phones and related equipment, 115,000 batteries, 23 million pounds of newsprint, 4.5 million pounds of clothing and 5.3 million pounds of electronics waste.

Beautification efforts during the Great American Cleanup returned both environmental and "quality-of-life" benefits to participating communities, with more than 4.6 million trees, flowers and bulbs planted. More than 2,400 buildings were spruced up with paint and renovations, and over 11,000 graffiti sites were abated.

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