 The
Litter Free School Zone program is designed to encourage
students to keep their school grounds, campus, and
neighborhood litter-free, and to raise public awareness
regarding litter via a Litter Free School Zone sign
to be displayed outside the school.
Students, clubs, classes, and even entire school districts
can participate in the Litter Free School Zone program.
Keeping their school litter-free is an easy and fun
way for students to work together, learning valuable
community leadership and responsibility skills while
gaining a respect for the environment and the world
around them. It is also an opportunity to develop
a school-wide stewardship ethic and set a community
example.
The Litter Free School Zone program strives to resolve
the issue of littering in two ways:
| 1.
Cleanup: Remove existing and deposited litter
as soon as possible after it appears, so that
further littering will be less likely to occur. |
| 2.
Prevention: Create a sense of understanding,
caring, and responsibility, often described
as environmental stewardship, in our children
so that they will not think of littering as
an acceptable behavior in their world. |
The ultimate goal is
a cleaner, more beautiful community, with a strong
sense of civic pride. As more students participate
in the Litter Free School Zone program, we hope that
there will soon be less litter to clean up. As residents
drive past the signage and see the clean schoolyard,
they also will be less inclined to deposit litter.
Let's think about it: if a single classroom of 25
students participates once a week and each only pick
up 1 piece of litter, in one year they will have picked
up 1300 pieces of litter. That is a huge impact on
litter for such a small percentage of the population.
Check the school grounds, campus, and neighborhood
weekly and remove litter. |
|
Report the number of cleanups completed, number
of participants, and amount collected to the PA
CleanWays office twice a year. (December 15th
and June 15th or end of school year) |
|
Promote, organize, and implement any school events
as litter free events. |
|
Report activities in school publications,
bulletin boards, websites, etc. |
|
Participate in the annual Great American Cleanup
of Pennsylvania and register and report online
at www.gacofpa.org. |
|
Make safety a top priority. |
|
Provide written notice to PA CleanWays and remove
signage in the event that the school wishes to
terminate from the program or if it becomes inactive. |
PA CleanWays Provides:
|
Adoption coordination with the designated school
contact. |
|
Attractive signage for your school designating
it as a litter free zone. |
|
Media coverage publicizing your school's involvement
through our newsletter, news releases, and the
websites: www.gacofpa.org
and www.pacleanways.org |
|
A variety of educational materials. |
|
Helpful and responsive assistance from staff. |
For more information,
please contact Sue Urchek toll free at 1-877-772-3673
ext. 106 or e-mail.
|
