By MAUREEN DOHERTY
NORTH READING — Another successful town cleanup and litter audit was conducted in the town center on Sunday morning, October 5. A total of 23 volunteers, of whom 12 were North Reading High School students, spent a sunny and warm morning collecting litter between 10 a.m. and noon as the temperature reached 80F. Sunday’s warmth was a welcome change for the volunteers from past cleanups that were impacted by rain.
It was the fifth cleanup event co-organized by the North Reading Green Alliance and NRHS’s EcoTeam in the past three years. According to Usha Pillai, Ph.D., a founding member of the North Reading Green Alliance, it was also the third consecutive cleanup in which the volunteers also conducted an audit of the collected litter. Prior audits were conducted on Oct. 4, 2024 and May 19, 2024.
“Based on the audit, this was our biggest haul to date. We collected almost 800 plastic, aluminum and glass items in addition to miscellaneous trash items which included a discarded wall clock, two tires and a pet carrier,” Pillai said.
“Before the event, we had surveyed some of the areas around town that had several litter items like plastic bottles and cans, so we were better able to direct our volunteers to such ‘hotspots’ during the cleanup. Perhaps not surprisingly, our audit results this time showed a much higher count of plastic bottles and aluminum cans.”
A comparison chart from the past three audits revealed that 300 plastic bottles were collected on Sunday, compared to about half that amount last October and 100 bottles in May 2024. Similarly, they collected about 210 aluminum cans on Sunday and about 120 last October. Nip bottles remained about the same this October and last October, at about 100, compared to about 25 in May 2024. Just under 100 plastic cups were collected in the last two fall audits and about 25 were collected in May 2024. They found about half as many plastic lids this October (50) compared with last October (under 100) and about one-third fewer plastic straws this October (about 20) compared with last October (about 60). Just a few glass bottles were found both this October and last October.
The pre-event mapping was done by a high school junior, Naveen Stewart, who is working on an independent project to create litter hotspot maps for cleanups like those being conducted by similar volunteer groups, according to Pillai. “He is developing an automatic litter detection computer model that he plans to use with a drone. We are hoping that his device can be deployed for the next cleanup in our town. His intent is to improve the effectiveness of community cleanups by providing aerial survey-based litter maps,” she explained.
So the next time you drive, walk or bike through the town center, be sure to notice how much cleaner it is thanks to this dedicated crew of volunteers, and commit to taking your own bottles, cans, cups, straws, lids (and random tires, clocks and pet carriers) home to dispose of properly.