WAYLAND, MA – With the mounds of snow gone, revealed is a bumper crop of roadside litter – so mark those calendars for the sixth annual Wayland Cleans Up!on Saturday, April 9 – pick up and recycle.
This year the cleanup effort will be done on the same day as the Earth Day Celebration produced by the Wayland Green Team and the Wayland High School Environmental Club.
Wayland Cleans Up! will have a single collection/recycling area near the entrance to the Wayland Middle School so it will be right nearby the Earth Day festivities on the school grounds. Wayland High School students – lead by Ian Stack – will staff the litter recycling area all day from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. while the Earth Day events will go on from 11a.m. to 2 p.m. Rain date for both events is Sunday.
New for the clean up this year will be roving groups of Wayland High students in the bright orange Wayland Cleans Up! T-shirts working the roadsides to pick up the worst of the roadside trash.
“Last year the cleanup collection was about 40% sorted for recycling and we hope to improve on that this year,” said Cliff Kolovson, Wayland Cleans Up! organizer. “We’ve had growing interest and participation and hope that also continues.”
Everyone in town is invited to participate. Simply collect anything and everything you can along the roadsides – plastic, glass bottles, aluminum cans, paper, even large items – and bring them to the middle school for sorting and recycling. WHS students can earn community service hours for their efforts – both collecting trash and/or working at the sorting station.
Volunteers are welcome to the T-shirts which will be available at the middle school or from Kolovson (508-655-2957 or cliff@pointed.com). Also see the Web site: http://cleanup.pointed.com/
Earth Day Celebration
Building on last year’s spectacular Earth Day Celebration, the sponsors –the Wayland High School Environmental Club and the Wayland Schools’ Green Team – aim to again feature green choices we all can make for our lives. Their event will feature informational displays, games, a raffle, music and food on the Middle School grounds. Green Team Coordinator Christina Veal and a committee of volunteers are working to make this effort as informative and exciting as last year’s kick-off event. Veal can be reached at 508-652-1903 or christina.veal@gmail.com.
Leading By Example
Kolovson, of Garden Path in the Happy Hollow corner of town, and compatriot Chris DeVany of Moore Road on the north side of Wayland have for years now organized the springtime cleanup effort. They are among many bicycle riders, runners and walkers in town who see the trash that collects just off the roadways.
Kolovson can be seen many mornings walking with his wife around Dudley Pond, carrying a plastic bag and collecting litter in his neighborhood. “I wish every walker would pick up even a little each day while they’re out in the spring. Take a small bag with you and pick up stuff… at ANY time – don’t wait for our cleanup day! Really, I’d love to be out of a job each spring,” he said.
He also reports on the ample evidence of public drinking all around town – with cases of beer bottles and piles of nip bottles clearly tossed from cars so as not to be caught holding. And, there are coffee cups, fast-food wrappings, water and juice bottles… and large items too like lawnmowers and wheelbarrows!
Cleanup can be done at any time, of course, Kolovson says. Let’s get started… but plan on working and celebrating on April 9 also!
Wayland Cleans Up! organizer Cliff Kolovson collected roadside litter on Rte. 27 near Water Row this weekend as students, teachers and other volunteers worked on installing fencing behind the guardrails to block turtles from getting on the roadway. The area is an annual target for the roadside cleanup effort that will be held this year on April 9. Wayland High teacher Emily Norton directed the turtle fencing project… and also helps Wayland Cleans Up! by organizing her students to help recycle collected litter.
