Vermonters clean the Green Mountain State

BURLINGTON, Vt. (WCAX) -

Did you notice lots of volunteers with green bags pickup up trash today? Things looked a lot tidier today because its Vermont’s Green Up Day. Channel 3′s Melissa Cooney takes us to different Green Up Day celebrations.

Green Up Day organizers say they had 66 thousand bags ready for pickup, and many towns ran out of bags before the big day even started. Today, thousands of Vermonters took to their town roads to clean up every mile.

Green Up Day is for everyone even the smallest Vermonters.

Fourth Graders from Jericho Elementary School are celebrating the planet and their winning videos in this year’s Green Up Day video contest.

Every Vermonter knows Green Up day. Since 1970, its been a time to give back to the planet and help clean up all of the litter that might have gotten stuck underneath the snow.

And these students say they’ve learned to treat every day like green up day.

“Even though Vermont looks like a really beautiful place, there’s still a lot of trash and it’s important to clean up,” said fourth grader Maeve Bulfer.

Jericho’s community breakfast is just one of hundreds of community green up celebrations throughout the state Saturday marking Green Up Day’s 52nd anniversary.

Some Vermonters, like Chris Howard of Burlington, say this is their first year taking part in the big clean up. “Vermont’s such a strong community and it’s awesome,” said Howard.

And for others, like Burlingtonian Rooney Castle, they’ve been participating for so long they know exactly where to find the most trash to clean up.

“Every year is different and I find that now probably 3 or 4 years of that area it seems to be a little easier every time less of the big stuff,” says Castle.

Green Up Executive Director Kate Alberghini says Vermonters cleaned around 75 percent of the state’s 13,000 miles of town roads last year.

This year Vermonters were challenged to focus even more on the roads right in their backyard.

“We’ve had reports from towns coming in over this past week really of 100 percent of their roads being claimed and cleaned up,” said Alberghini.

Alberghini says the impacts of picking up your litter Saturday and every day do more than just tidy up the state.

“Businesses and our tourism industry is huge here in Vermont. So giving people a clean place to live work and play is really important,” said Alberghini.

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