Keep Perry County Beautiful
Keep Perry County Beautiful
Keep Perry County Beautiful
'Empowering people to eliminate illegal dumping
and littering in Pennsylvania.'
Keep Perry County Beautiful, Keep Huntingdon County Beautiful, Keep Juniata County Beautiful, and PA Clean Ways of Mifflin County received the Governor's Award for Environmental Excellence in recognition of their collaborative efforts with the Tire War project. The ceremony was held on April 25, 2017 in Harrisburg, PA.
Keep Pennsylvania Beautiful (KPB)is a state wide non-profit organization that helps people who are ready to take action against illegal dumping and littering in their communities. Our core programs revolve around cleanups, adoptions and education. Keep Perry County Beautiful is an affiliate of Keep Pennsylvania Beautiful and is supported by the Perry County Commissioners and the Perry County Conservation District.
If you are bothered by illegal dumping and littering as much as we are, we hope you'll join us in working toward a cleaner Perry County! There are lots of ways to get involved - here are just a few:
Volunteering at local cleanups and special recycling events.
Adopting a local roadway, greenway, or other special place you care about.
Learning more about illegal dumping and how it can be eliminated.
WANT TO BECOME A VOLUNTEER? Contact the Perry County Conservation District to learn more!
Please check our homepage or calendar for upcoming cleanups and special recycling events. Click here to download a Volunteer Waiver. For more information on Keep Pennsylvania Beautiful, visit their website at www.keeppabeautiful.org.
Keep Perry County Beautiful History
In 2010, PA CleanWays merged with Keep Pennsylvania Beautiful to pool resources and educational programs. Three focus areas Clean it! Prevent it! Keep it! were identified as priorities for the newly named group. PA CleanWays of Perry County became Keep Perry County Beautiful. The mission of keeping our roads and neighborhoods clean remains the same, only the name has changed.
For nearly two decades, the Keep PA Beautiful grassroots network has been cleaning dumpsites and littered areas across the state of Pennsylvania. Along with its other programming, such as recycling and special collection events, KPB and its chapters and affiliates have removed over 39,304 tons of trash and recycled over 2,150 tons of scrap metal from Pennsylvania's hillsides, local roads, and streams. Keep PA Beautiful has also collected or removed 540,382 tires and over 24,306 appliances. More than 93,452 miles of local roads, parks/pathways, and waterways have been adopted through the Keep Pennsylvania Beautiful adoption program. KPB has organized and planted more than 22,000 trees on public lands through its beautification program. In total, more than 1,182,473 volunteers have dedicated nearly 196,000 volunteer hours to its programming.
KPB works with people that want to clean their communities and natural areas. We work primarily on public lands, from a site along a municipal road to a greenway in a county park to a site in a state forest, park, or game land. On occasion, KPB does tackle private land sites but only if the owner of the land is a victim of illegal dumping.
Why should you care about dumping? Dumpsites pollute our soil, surface, and groundwater supplies as well as the air we breathe if a site catches on fire. They attract disease spreading rodents and are breeding grounds for mosquitoes that may carry West Nile Virus. Dumpsites are a potential source of physical injury to people and can be lethal to wildlife. They are costly to clean, costs that are often shouldered by taxpayers. As an example, in 2007, the Philadelphia Daily News reported that the city of Philadelphia spent $1.9 million cleaning up illegal dumpsites the previous year. PA CleanWays has found that, depending on the contents of the dumpsite, it costs between $600 and $1,000 per ton for clean up and removal.
