According to the EPA, an average American throws out approximately 4.9 pounds of trash daily and nearly 1800 pounds in a year. Now consider the entire American population, and the figures can reach astronomical levels.
With trashing and pollution being leading causes of diseases and environmental problems, any effort to clean up is a great one. While doing your part can make a difference, you’d make much more difference if you got people to do it together.
Find the best rent a dumpster near me that will be perfect to ensure the cleanliness of your street or neighborhood.
If you desire to host a neighborhood clean-up but do not know how to do it, this post can give you some handy tips.
1. Choose the clean-up
Pollution can occur anywhere, and it may not be possible to clean up all the places in a single day. So, choosing where you want to focus your clean-up efforts first is important. Some of the areas you could focus on include:
Beach Clean-up
Beaches are great vacationing spots for many families. Unfortunately, vacationers carry stuff to eat, drink, or play with at the beach. Unfortunately, many do not bother with proper waste disposal resulting in tons of trash filling US beaches yearly.
Beach trash becomes hazardous to marine animals and can also host harmful organisms that host diseases that can affect humans. Also, a trashed beach is an eyesore you do want to have in your neighborhood.
Rivers Clean-ups
Rivers are essential for life because they are a primary source of drinking water. So if you live in a neighborhood near a river, you should consider cleaning it up.
Unfortunately, the best you can do in river clean-up is remove physical matter. Chemical contaminants can only be removed through water treatment. The sad part is chemical pollutants can cause a lot of harm to users.
If you or the people in your neighborhood have been affected by poorly treated water, you could be eligible for compensation. A good example is the Camp Lejeune water contamination.
If you lived in Camp Lejeune during the period its water was compensated and have been suffering from related complications, this guide on water contamination settlement amounts for Camp Lejeune water contamination victims can help you estimate what to expect in a payout.
Park Clean-ups
Parks are prone to trashing, especially after busy events. The local government is responsible for keeping parks clean. But there are times when they could take time to do so.
Unfortunately, the local community will be most at risk from the effects of trashing. So you can choose to take the initiative and organize a clean-up in a park closest to you.
Highway Clean-up
While almost every person knows the impact of trashing, people still throw trash outside their car windows resulting in approximately one million pounds of trash along the way each year.
Volunteer groups like Adopt a Highway often clear out this trash, but they can only do so much, so highway clean-up is worth considering.
2. Create a Detailed Plan for the Activity
After identifying the activity, the next step would be creating a detailed plan to determine the number of volunteers you need to enroll, dates, acquisition of supplies, licenses, if any are required, meeting locations, and everything in between.
Your plan will dictate how receptive the people you approach to volunteering will be open for the idea.
3. Choose an Enthusiastic Leader to Help With Volunteer Recruitment
If you are not so good at mobilization, you may want to choose an enthusiastic leader to help you with recruiting. Volunteers are more likely to come onboard when the recruiters are pumped out for the event they want the volunteers to be a part of.
After recruiting, the next step is executing your plan. Irrespective of how big or small of a difference you make, you have played a role in making the world a cleaner, so you deserve commendation.