Great American Cleanup
The Great American Cleanup® unifies and beautifies communities across the country in a grassroots spring-cleaning movement. Celebrating its 26th year, the most recent Great American Cleanup created 15,000 opportunities for millions of volunteers to have remarkable results – picking up millions of pounds of litter, cleaning over 100,000 acres of public spaces, and tens of thousands of miles of roadways and shorelines.
The Great American Cleanup prompts individuals to take greater responsibility for their local environment by conducting grassroots community service projects that engage volunteers, local businesses, and civic leaders. A successful Great American Cleanup project must fulfill the needs of the local community; that’s why we work with local community and business leaders, as well as other key stakeholders to gain knowledge about the community’s needs and carefully select and execute appropriate projects.
Community Cleanup
The Great American Cleanup began as a litter cleanup initiative designed to aesthetically improve our environment by creating cleaner parks, streetscapes, and public spaces through litter removal and elimination. To this day, community cleanups remain at the very heart of the campaign, and the results are remarkable. In 2019 alone, over 40 million pounds of litter and recyclables were collected by volunteers throughout the country.
Community Greening
Our community greening and beautification efforts range from new tree plantings that provide shade and sequester carbon to planting flower gardens that create vibrant gateways to shopping and entertainment districts to creating community gardens that help feed the hungry and educate young gardeners.
Community Education
Through a wide array of workshops, special events and on-the-ground service projects, leaders from our affiliate network and participating organizations are helping to change attitudes and behaviors toward the environment by engaging young and old alike.
Community Recycling
Keep America Beautiful strives to motivate more Americans to make informed decisions and take simple everyday actions to clean up, green up, and fix up their local communities through their participation in the Great American Cleanup.