By Rick Gardner
This year’s cleanup project has been a great success with about 110 families stepping up to clean
our roads, parks, and trails. We did extend the cleanup period by a week because of the rainy end to
April, but as of this writing we are closing in on our 100% goal.
Most of the effort and most of the volunteering was done to clean up the town roads… over 80 miles
of road were claimed by residents, and over the course of the month, they scoured the roadsides and
collected hundreds of bags of trash. Residents reported a lighter ‘take’ than last year… a good sign!
As expected, beer cans and nip bottles were at the top of the list…hundreds of nip bottles were found
particularly along the busy Route 140 and Route 62 highways.
There were also a good number of items of furniture, car parts (fenders, batteries, etc.), and many
others. Geof Yaglou provided a big help by hauling away large items, and Geof and Bob Leary both
took on several of the less popular roads. Bob did find an unopened six pack of beer as
compensation!
For our parks, we had a team of kids and residents, led by the EAC, who tackled Thomas Prince
School grounds, and our residents took care of Krashes Field, the town common and Sawyer Field.
The trails were a mess due to the winter ice and snow, but with a lot of help from Philip Ceryanek
and Butch St. Louis, and the help of Tom Moore, Brian Specht, and the Dunbar family, all of the trails
have been cleared and are ready for use.
We also recognize that many residents pick up litter on a regular basis without signing up for a road.
Some of our volunteers found that their roads were pretty easy to clean as a result!
A celebration is planned on the town common on May 10th for the volunteers of the effort.
If you would like to thank the volunteers who cleaned your road, you can go to the town website,
Open Space Committee page and click on Earth Month Cleanup to see a map of all of the roads.
Expanding/clicking on a line in this chart will give you the name of the road and the name of the
person or people who signed up to clean it.
Princeton is fortunate to have so many residents willing to keep our roads, parks, and trails
clean! They look great!