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Greenwich Green & Clean is hosting a townwide fall cleanup Saturday, handing out litterbags and gloves for residents to collect garbage on town streets and in neighborhoods.
Residents can pick up litterbags and gloves from 8 a.m. to noon Saturday at any town firehouse, then return their bags filled with collected trash to dumpsters at the firehouses as late as 4 p.m. As a bonus, participants get daffodil bulbs to plant anywhere they please.
"The first time we began the cleanup, we had people come back and say, 'I had no clue what was on the sides of the roads,'" says Mary Hull, executive director of Greenwich Green & Clean. "They see the Greenwich beach and they think, 'Well, this is clean.' Sure it is, but there are a lot of other places that are absolutely foul."
Hull says the cleanup is also a great opportunity for students to earn community service hours. "When kids go out and clean up the town, they can come back with their bags and get a certificate that says they helped out," says Hull.
As part of the cleanup, Green & Clean is also participating in an international coastal inventory.
"We have people who are collecting along any of our shorelines, including the Mianus River, and then tallying up what they find," she says. "We take the information and send it to Washington as a way for the U.S. government to try to find out what is polluting our waters."
During the cleanup, anyone can get a tally form from firehouses to count litter on the shorelines, then return the information to Green & Clean.
Hull says residents should not use the cleanup to get rid of household garbage. "We do not want your garbage, just what is found along the road," she says.
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