20 Minute Cleanup — Thurs­day, April 19th, 2012

The 20 Minute Cleanup is an annual Howard County spring clean­ing project.  Busi­nesses, schools, com­mu­nity groups, neigh­bors and indi­vid­u­als help keep trash out of the envi­ron­ment and make Howard County clean and green.  Groups and indi­vid­u­als safely pick up lit­ter around an area of their choice and dis­pose of trash and recy­cling using their reg­u­lar busi­ness or res­i­den­tial pick-up.  By work­ing together, we make a real difference.

When the cleanups are done, the Office of Envi­ron­men­tal Sus­tain­abil­ity col­lects results through the email address 20minutecleanup@howardcountymd.gov.  We track how many peo­ple par­tic­i­pate and how many bags of trash and recy­cling are col­lected.  We thank the par­tic­i­pants on this web­site and let every­one know the results.  Phở­tos of cleanup events are encour­aged.  For more infor­ma­tion on how to par­tic­i­pate, please check out the 20 Minute Cleanup FAQ’s.

Over 2300 peo­ple par­tic­i­pated in the 2012 20 Minute Cleanup.  Thank you Howard County!   The thank you list and more infor­ma­tion are avail­able in the blog post about it.  There are pic­tures too on our Flikr page.

There were also County-wide cleanups in 2011 and 2010.  Each year vol­un­teers picked up lots of trash and recy­cling and had some fun doing it.  When lots of peo­ple join in, we remove lots of trash from the envi­ron­ment with just a lit­tle bit of effort. This can have a last­ing effect because peo­ple are less likely to lit­ter on clean areas. 

Over 1500 peo­ple par­tic­i­pated in 2011.  More infor­ma­tion about the 2011 cleanup can be found HERE.  In 2010, over 1,000 peo­ple par­tic­i­pated.  Some of the 2010 results are described HERE.

Com­mu­nity Cleanups

Com­mu­nity groups, Home Owner Asso­ci­a­tions, and faith-based orga­ni­za­tions can have a big impact on the health and beauty of their neigh­bor­hoods by keep­ing them clean and free of trash.  Some com­mu­ni­ties work together to have neigh­bor­hood cleanup days.  If you would like help orga­niz­ing an event like this please email Elissa Rei­neck at ereineck@howardcountymd.gov or call 410–313-1175. 

Adopt-A-Road

The Howard County Depart­ment of Pub­lic Works is com­mit­ted to pro­vid­ing the cit­i­zens of Howard County with a clean and envi­ron­men­tally safe com­mu­nity.  Street sweep­ing is per­formed on most county roads four times a year.  The Bureau of High­ways road crews con­sis­tently travel through­out the county clean­ing up debris on county roads.  The Bureau of High­ways also oper­ates an Adopt-A-Road pro­gram.  Hun­dreds of Howard County cit­i­zens are mak­ing a dif­fer­ence by vol­un­teer­ing to mon­i­tor and clean up roadsides.

Groups adopt a one to three mile sec­tion of a county road for a min­i­mum of two years.  Lit­ter is col­lected as needed, at a min­i­mum of four times per year with a major clean-up each spring.