The 20 Minute Cleanup is an annual Howard County spring cleaning project held the whole month of April. Most years, businesses, schools, community groups, neighbors and individuals help keep trash out of the environment.
How to Participate
Participating in the 20 Minute Cleanup is easy. Just pick a location and then safely pick up the litter that you find. Use your regular trash and recycling pickup service to dispose of what you collect.
Once volunteers do a cleanup, we ask that they send an email to 20minutecleanup@howardcountymd.gov with the number of people who participated and how many bags of trash and recycling collected. Pictures are encouraged! We post the results and thank all the participants on this website. Cleanup results can also be shared on social media using @livegreenhoward and #20minutecleanup.
If you have any questions about how to participate, please email us.
Spread the Word
Help us spread the word about the initiative with this printable flyer or social media graphic. Share with friends, neighbors, co-workers, and beyond to get more people involved!
Thank You, Participants
Since 2010, over 20,000 people have participated! Most did more than 20 minutes, but at 20 minutes each, that’s over 6,000 hours of volunteering! Thank you Howard County – let’s keep it going. By working together, we make a real difference.
Businesses
The Wendy Slaughter Team of Samson Properties
Planet Aid
KVV Group of John Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory
EDF Power Solutions
Community Groups
Center for Watershed Protection
SwingLeftHowardCountyMD
Columbia Jewish Congregation
Girl Scout Troop 4336
Less Plastics Please
Community Ecology Institute: staff, Families in Nature program, homeschool sprouts
Resurrection St. Paul School Cluster Girl Scouts
Cub Scout Pack 794
Beechwood Manor Community
The Lutheran Village at Miller’s Grant
Savage Community Association
St. Francis of Assisi Fulton Parish Garden Club
Girl Scout Troop 4240
Cub Scout Pack 461
Girl Scout Troop 2218
Temple Isaiah
Individuals
Pat Heinz
The Burke-Hicks Family & The Sakelaris Family
Carolyn & Emily Williams
“Team Blue Heron”
A Stewart & F Stewart
Hudson, Decker & Lindsay Crichton
Ellen Billiter
Katalin & Emily Kang
The Griffith Family
Schools
Atholton Elementary School 5th Graders
Oakland Mills High School Youth Climate Institute Chapter
This page contains archived web content of the Howard County Office of Community Sustainability. The following content is retained exclusively for recordkeeping and is not altered or updated after the date of archival. If you need an accessible version of any web content, please contact the Office of Community Sustainability at OCS@howardcountymd.gov.
Howard County participates in at least two stream cleanup projects per year. The Recreation and Parks Department leads cleanups each fall as part of the International Coastal Cleanup. In the spring, we participate in Project Clean Stream. If you would like to find out when these cleanups are happening, join our volunteer mailing list or follow livegreenhoward on social media.
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.
