A Penn Hills group has been spending their free time cleaning up litter around the area, making sure the neighborhoods look clean and trash-free, and now they’ve won a very special award for their efforts.
The Penn Hills Anti-Litter Group recently competed in the Pittsburgh Garbage Olympics, which is a contest run by the City of Pittsburgh, with help from the Department of Public Works, in which multiple neighborhoods inside the city compete for recognition in helping to clean up trash. Penn Hills, the only suburb competing this year, won the first-place award for picking up the most garbage.
Going up against 44 other neighborhoods, the Penn Hills group finished the day having picked up 123 bags of trash along with a number of other random items, including 33 tires and some additional bulk trash, like a bicycle and a shopping cart, earning the top prize and a trophy for their efforts. The contest as a whole finished the day with over 1,100 bags of trash collected, along with approximately 250 televisions, and over 650 other bulk items.
Taking place this year on Sept. 18, this was the fifth consecutive season for the Pittsburgh Garbage Olympics, with the event growing exponentially since its inception. For instance, last year’s contest featured just 33 teams, and there are hopes it will continue to grow in the future.
The Garbage Olympics doesn’t just give out awards for most garbage picked up, they also give out secondary awards in categories like Most Unusual Item, Most Volunteers and Dirtiest Volunteer. In last year’s event, the Penn Hills group won the award for Most Team Spirit.
The idea of making the job fun is of prime importance to the Penn Hills group, as it can often be dirty and thankless, so having a good time becomes a great way to keep the volunteers involved. Group leader Faith Milazzo said, “Our pickup is messy, but we care. We’re a good group of people who care, and we try to make sure we have fun when we do it.”
The group does garbage pickup from spring through fall every year. The group organizes its members through an active Facebook page, which carries the organization’s mission: “We are a group of people who want to keep Penn Hills beautiful. We are concerned about litter (including illegal dumping issues). Recycling, reusing, and reducing are also important to us. We want to be proactive, through awareness and information about litter, and suggestions to reduce it by reporting litter to the appropriate entity and posting about the results and by participating in litter pickups as a group and/or as individuals (or helping out in a related way if some are unable).”
The last organized group garbage pickup of the year is scheduled for Oct. 30. For details email the group at PHAntiLitterGroup@gmail.com.
Milazzo concluded, “We want people not to litter. We appreciate people not littering, and if you see a piece of litter laying around, just pick it up.”
