General Information The Keep America Beautiful Great American CleanupTM is the nation's largest annual cleanup and community improvement event, which runs from March 1 through May 31. The Great American CleanupTM stimulates community pride by involving residents, businesses, and politicians at the state and local level in an effort to improve and beautify their local environment. It encourages volunteerism, personal action, and responsibility, and promotes the missions of the Keep America Beautiful organization: litter prevention, beautification, and minimizing the impact of solid waste.
Keep Nebraska Beautiful will furnish trash bags, banners and posters to those Nebraska communities who wish to participate in the Great American Cleanup this Spring. Activities can include litter cleanups, cell phone recycling, planting red flowers for a "Grow Big Red" garden, increased recycling collections, tree plantings, clothes collections, etc. Please register any event or activity you wish to do so we are able to keep track of everything happening in Nebraska and report them back to Keep America Beautiful.
Register your Great American CleanupTM activities now!
Download the 2008 Registration Form, print it out and fax it (402-486-4563) or send it in! Download
During the 2007 Great American Cleanup, Nebraska held 821 events with 20,919 volunteers representing 154 communities participating. They collected 2,892,616 pounds of litter, and 124,464 pounds of cell phones, computers and other electronics. Additionally, 1.263 trees were planted as well as 15,652 flowers. Grow Big Red Gardens were planted with red and white flowers. The Great American CleanupŠ was a time to increase our educational outreach. A total of 372 education workshops were conducted with 19,150 people in attendance. We look forward to even more impressive results in 2008!
Contact Keep Nebraska Beautiful to find out when the Great American CleanupTM is happening in your community, and projects your group might do for the 2008 effort.
2008 Great American Cleanup National Sponsors Keep Nebraska Beautiful thanks these sponsors for providing trash bags, banners, posters and other resources to make the Great American Cleanup so successful!
Great American CleanupTM Project Ideas
The Great American CleanupTM focuses not only on litter removal and litter prevention, but also on other local community improvement initiatives such as Grow Big Red flower gardens and neighborhood beautification projects. By offering many different ways to participate, the Great American CleanupTM hopes to get more and more people involved. Keep America Beautiful believes that hands-on involvement can really influence changes in attitude and behavior that affect our environment.
Litter Cleanup
Litter is a huge problem that plagues all our cities. The Great American CleanupTM helps to bring attention to your community's litter problem so that volunteers can be recruited to remove litter from public lands and neighborhoods during the event. The Great American CleanupTM also hopes to create a lasting awareness of the importance of litter control that will continue throughout the year.
Grow Big Red
Communities and organizations are encouraged to plant red or red and white flower gardens to show pride in our State and pride in our communities.
Recycling, including Cell Phone Recycling
The Great American CleanupTM is an opportunity to conduct a recycling drive. Contact the Keep Nebraska Beautiful office if you would like postage-paid envelopes to recycle cell phones and all their peripherals such as the batteries, chargers, etc. It is an opportunity to educate residents and businesses on the importance of recycling.
Graffiti Removal and Neighborhood Beautification Projects
In communities where graffiti is a recurring problem, the Great American CleanupTM encourages painting over defaced public buildings and areas to restore beauty and send the message that graffiti will not be tolerated there.
In addition to cleanups and paint-outs, the Great American CleanupTM is also a forum to incorporate the "greening" of each community with projects to plant flowers (particularly red and white for Grow Big Red Gardens) and tree seedlings.
Clothes Collection
Collecting clothes for the reuse by the needy is another Great American CleanupTM activity that fits right into goals to reduce, reuse, and recycle. Drop-off sites around the community are designated for clothing collection. After collection, the clothing is donated to local charities, shelters, and other social service organizations.
If your Nebraska community is interested in participating in the Great American CleanupTM, call the Keep Nebraska Beautiful office at 800-486-4562 or volunteer by clicking here.
The Keep America Beautiful Great American CleanupTM is the nation's largest annual cleanup and community improvement event, which runs from March 1 through May 31. The Great American CleanupTM stimulates community pride by involving residents, businesses, and politicians at the state and local level in an effort to improve and beautify their local environment. It encourages volunteerism, personal action, and responsibility, and promotes the missions of the Keep America Beautiful organization: litter prevention, beautification, and minimizing the impact of solid waste.
Keep Nebraska Beautiful thanks these sponsors for providing trash bags, banners, posters and other resources to make the Great American Cleanup so successful!
