On Saturday, June 26, nearly 200 volunteers, non-profits, and community organizations joined forces to clean up litter throughout the cities of Lake Elsinore, Canyon Lake, and Wildomar as part of a new County-wide pollution prevention initiative called Love Your Neighborhood.
The Love Your Neighborhood program is a county-wide pollution prevention initiative administered by the Western Riverside County Association of Governments (WRCOG) and
supported through a sponsorship with Riverside County Watershed Protection Program (RCWPP). The program aims to partner with Riverside County cities to host local cleanup events of their own and encourage residents to participate in reducing litter and other pollutants in their neighborhoods and beyond.
The Multi-City Community Clean-Up Event kicked-off at the Lake Elsinore Storm Stadium and was coordinated by the City of Lake Elsinore in partnership with the Cities of Canyon Lake and Wildomar. The Love Your Neighborhood program supplied volunteers with trash pickers, trash bags, reusable gloves and wristbands.
During the event, volunteers collected items ranging from food wrappers, cigarette butts, plastic bags, tire and automobile debris to large appliances with the help of public works crews. By the end of the day, volunteers had collected over 2,000 pounds of litter and helped remove dozens of bulky waste items.
The Love Your Neighborhood program tracks the number of pollutants removed from communities in support of meeting stormwater mandates and other environmental objectives. The real time data collected during events also helps track key issues related to pollution such as litter, recycling, over-watering, and household hazardous waste disposal. Residents can even document their own clean-up activities on the program’s website to help support the initiatives at wrcog.us/316/Love-your-Neighborhood.
