By SARA GREENE
Leader staff writer
Turnout was down slightly this year, but about 200 volunteers took advantage of the warm temperatures Saturday to pick up litter around Cabot during Cabot’s annual spring cleanup.
“On Saturday we collected 357 tires, the Boy Scouts collected five 16-foot trailers of scrap iron and all three of our Dumpsters and a dump truck from the city were overloaded,” says Sue Wagner, secretary for Cabot City Beautiful.
Last spring the Cabot Spring Cleanup collected 16 tons of garbage, 98 car batteries and 374 tires.
Sponsored by the city and Cabot City Beautiful, the annual event is held in conjunction with the nationwide “Great American Clean-Up” and “Keep Arkansas Beautiful” month.
It will be a couple of weeks before Cabot City Beautiful knows just how many tons of garbage were collected but Wagner says she expects it will be more than last year.
Individuals, families, neighborhoods, businesses, schools and church groups and civic and service organizations from across Cabot converged at Cabot Panther Stadium parking lot at 9 a.m. After picking up litter along the main thoroughfares in Cabot, volunteers returned to the parking lot at noon for free hotdogs and hamburgers served up by the First Security “Grill Team” with drinks provided by Pepsi.
“Unfortunately there are just some areas that don’t get picked up because of not enough volunteer participation.
“We really appreciate the people who came out,” said Matt Webber, vice-president of Cabot City Beautiful.
“Cabot High School Reserve Officer Training Corps did a bang up job on the stretch of road they pick up (Hwy. 67/167) and about 10 of the cadets helped us conduct the event by stacking the tires and unloading the vehicles.”
The spring cleanup offers an opportunity for residents to dispose of household hazardous waste such as old paint, automotive oil, antifreeze, fluorescent bulbs, household cleaners, batteries and automotive tires.
In 2006, the Great American Cleanup is expected to involve close to an estimated 2.5 million people volunteering more than 8 million hours to clean, beautify and improve 16,000 communities during 30,000 events from coast to coast in all 50 states. Activities will include beautifying parks and recreation areas, cleaning seashores and waterways, handling recycling collections, picking up litter, planting trees and flowers and conducting educational programs and litter-free events.
For the fourth consecutive year, President George W. Bush is serving as honorary chair of the Great American Cleanup. Mrs. Laura Bush joins him as honorary chair.
Last year 2.4 million Great Ame-rican Cleanup volunteers collected a record breaking 208 million pounds of litter and debris; planted 4.2 million flowers and bulbs; cleaned 176 miles or roads, streets and highways, and cleaned 10,250 miles of rivers, lakes and shorelines.
In addition, according to a 2005 Keep America Beautiful survey, 92 percent of Great American Cleanup organizers noted that their communities, neighborhoods and residents felt safer after volunteers united to clean and beautify the local environment. For more information on Cabot City Beautiful, write Cabot City Beautiful, Inc. P.O. Box 1101 Cabot, Ark., 72023 or via e-mail at cabotbeautiful@yahoo.com.
