KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (WATE) — For the last four years, TDOT has held a month-long initiative called No Trash November that seeks to keep roads and waterways safe from litter. This year, 2,412 volunteers cleaned 69,776 pounds of litter.
Keep Knoxville Beautiful collected the most litter of any Keep Tennessee Beautiful Affiliate during No Trash November, the Tennessee Department of Transportation announced.
TDOT listed four categories of winners: Keep Tennessee Beautiful Affiliate, Adopt-A-Highway Group, Youth Group, and Water Group. This year, Keep Knoxville Beautiful was one of the winners, collecting 11,865 pounds of litter, about 17% of the total picked up around the state. The other winners were Donnie E Horton Post 254 (2,095 pounds collected), Conservation Kid in Hamilton County (315 pounds collected) and TN Delta Alliance (6,110 pounds collected).
“We are grateful to the more than 2,400 Tennesseans that came together in November to help us in our mission to prevent and reduce litter,” said Michael McClanahan with the TDOT Beautification Office. “Community cleanups and individual actions taken last month showcase what we can achieve when we work together to preserve our state’s beauty. We encourage all residents to be a part of the solution to end littering. Even small, simple actions can help, from reducing single-use plastics to recognizing that food waste is litter, every effort counts.”
When the initiative began in 2021, TDOT estimated there to be 100 million pieces of litter on Tennessee’s roads at any time. That first year, they aimed to remove 20,000 pounds. In the end, they exceeded that goal, collecting over 46,000 pounds. They surpassed this in 2022 with more than 48,000 pounds collected and again last year with over 86,000 pounds collected.
Keep Knoxville Beautiful also received special recognition in 2022 for collecting 12,860 pounds, which accounts for 26% of the total.
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