By: Esther Gowin
FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — Over the weekend the city of Fayetteville hosted litter clean-ups in celebration of National Make a Difference Day.
On Saturday morning the Fayetteville Recycling and Trash Division collaborated with the Parks and Recreation and Sustainability Departments to host a drive-through giveaway of litter grabbers and t-shirts.
The Enviromental Educator for the city of Fayetteville and organizer of the city-wide clean up event, Heather Ellzey, said they collaborated with local organizations to create an event called ‘Pick Up Where You Play’.
“With quarantine happening, everybody has been out enjoying our parks, lakes and rivers, which is awesome,” Ellzey said. “But there is a lot of litter out there.”
This year, due to the current pandemic, Make a Difference Day events looked different than the past years. Ellzey said the drive-through event allows for people to pick up supplies and go out on their own.
“Typically we help local organizations by getting together and then clean up a specific area.” Ellzey said. “But this year, since we are helping people with social distancing, we are allowing them to come to us.”
The first fifty people to sign up for the event received a free litter-grabber and the first one hundred received a free t-shirt. The giveaway also included trash bags, gloves and a pamphlet about recycling.
Ellzey said the clean-up events are a good way to clean water and soil around the city.
“When litter ends up in our waterways, that contaminates not only our soil but the water that we drink.” Ellezey said. “Specifically with styrofoam, a good example of why the city passed the styrofoam ban.”
The city of Fayetteville passed an ordinance in November last year to ban all single-use polystyrene foam (commonly known as styrofoam).