The Toledo area is currently seeing a revitalization. People are proud of Toledo and proud to live here. As we grow as a community though it is becoming ever more important for us to take care of our communal spaces and communal resources. We need to get litter out of our parks, our rivers and streams, our lake, off of our highways, and out of our neighborhoods. When people evaluate a city to live in, visit, or bring business to, cleanliness is one aspect that they evaluate in making decisions. Our litter is holding us back. Litter hurts everyone. It costs money. Since 2007 it has cost taxpayers $37 million dollars for the clean-up of 3.7 million bags of trash. Looking at a bigger scale, litter costs the United States almost $11.5 billion annually. It doesn’t just cost money though, it also impacts the housing market, diminishes a sense of community, and reduces a commitment to environmental stewardship.

In 2021 we launched new program, a competitive, baseball themed, litter reduction initiative called the Toledo Litter League.  In the first year, this program had 32 active teams that collected an estimated 26,550lbs of litter from our neighborhoods, parks, and streets.  This was a huge success for our first year!  A quick drive around Toledo though and it is evident that we need to do more.  Litter continues to be an issue, effecting not just the environment and Lake Erie, but also community pride, tourism, and the housing market throughout the Toledo area.

This year we are looking to increase participation through giving teams incentaves to reach certain milestones (i.e. T-shirts after two cleanups, water bottles after 4 cleanups, gift cards or baskets after 6 cleanups, etc).  This will allow us to ramp up the competition and fun of this event, ecourging additional groups to participate and motivating existing groups to do more cleanups.

Research show that once an area is clean, people are less likely to litter there.  We are dedicated to pushing this culture shift, showing that it is socially unacceptable to litter anywhere in Lucas County, but to do this, we need your support.