Group Members: Mia Hernandez, Amiyah Jones, Ismail Salarzai, Madison Parton, LaVounna Fernandes, Karen Melara-Garcia, Ajazullhaq Azizi
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Littering is a big problem in our community and across the country. Every day, we see trash on the streets, in parks, and on sidewalks. Things, such as, plastic bottles, food wrappers, and cigarette butts pile up, making the environment look bad and causing harm to nature. Not just litter makes public places dirty, but it can also be dangerous. Trash on roads can be a hazard for drivers, and litter in parks can harm animals or humans themselves. The problem keeps getting worse, because many people don’t think twice about throwing their garbage on the ground instead of in a trash can. Since we see this problem all the time, our group decided to take action. Even small efforts, such as, picking up trash in our neighborhoods can help make a difference. By cleaning up and encouraging others to do the same, we can create a cleaner and healthier community for everyone.
Litter pollution affects the environment that we all live in. Approximately 10.3 billion litter items are around our roadways in the US. This is around 38 million pounds in Washington alone. Among the top litter items are plastic, cigarettes, food wrappers and others. This snot only poses risks to the environment but it could also be unsafe for us to be around, especially on the road. This is a significant problem that could easily be solved. Anywhere you go you are bound to see trash/litter, whether that be on the road or in a park or other areas. This is why we chose to combat this issue, we see it everyday and we see the impact on our lives and the environment.
Solution criteria part we wanted that is simple and easy for everyone to do. It actually makes a difference in keeping our community clean. It should work with everyone’s schedule so even if we couldn’t meet as a big group we could still participate. It should encourage people to keep areas clean not just for this project, but in the future too. It can be repeated if we or others want to keep making an impact.
Solution suggestions are that we should do a group clean up in parks, streets or other public areas. We can have each person pick up trash in their own neighborhood if meeting as a group is difficult. We are taking videos or photos of our progress to show how small actions add up. We are talking to others about this and why its important to keep our community clean. We can reach out to local businesses or schools to see if they can help by adding more trash cans or signs.
After considering our options, we decided on the individual clean-up approach. While a group clean-up event would have been ideal, scheduling conflicts made it difficult for all members to participate at the same time. By allowing each person to pick up litter in their own neighborhood, we ensured that everyone could contribute to the project without logistical challenges. This solution met all our established criteria: it was simple, effective, flexible, and encouraged long-term awareness and action. Additionally, it provided tangible results, as each group member documented their efforts, demonstrating the collective impact of small individual actions.
Our original idea for this project was to go somewhere as a group, however, most members had conflicting schedules that made it hard to plan around them. Because of this, members of our group split up and picked up trash in areas closest to them. The dates that each person carried out their “Small Win” ranged from Feb. 27 until March 5th where each member spent 1 hour or more picking up trash in parks, and roadways to help keep their communities clean. Each member of the group shared their pictures and videos with each other and talked about what they found interesting about this project and how their work may have benefited their community.
We decided to each do our own part separately since most members of the group didn’t have time to do a joint session. Our group was successful in communicating this and we came up with the idea to pick up trash in our local communities. By removing trash from our local communities we created a cleaner space for the people that live in it. We communicated through our group chat which person should do what on the report and everyone did their part very smoothly.
Risk of escaped trash along US roadways. (n.d.-b). https://www.epa.gov/system/files/documents/2024-09/escaped-trash-risk-map-detailed-description.pdf
Preventing litter? new campaign reminds washingtonians it’s as “simple as that.” Sept. 12 -Preventing litter? New campaign reminds Washingtonians it’s as “Simple As That” -Washington State Department of Ecology. (n.d.). https://ecology.wa.gov/about-us/who-we-are/news/2024/sept-12-preventing-litter-new-campaign-remind-washingtonians-it-s-as-simple-as-that
Demkovich, L. (2023, September 19). “Marred by Litter”: Millions of pounds of trash soil Washington Roads and state lands. Washington State Standard. https://washingtonstatestandard.com/briefs/marred-by-litter-millions-of-pounds-of-trash-is-getting-dumped-on-washington-roads/