2010 Great American Cleanup results are in

Nearly 4 million volunteers, working on behalf of thousands of local organizations across the nation, put in 5.7 million volunteer hours enriching their communities by making them cleaner, greener and safer during Keep America Beautiful’s 2010 Great American Cleanup™.

With more than 30,000 events taking place in 33,700 communities nationwide, the scale of this national grassroots effort to revitalize neighborhoods and renew civic pride was enormous.

The 2010 results, from data collected from the three-month program (March 1-May 31), were:

• 76 million pounds of litter and debris were removed from public lands and rights-of-way, including 70,000 acres of parks and public lands, nearly 7,000 miles of rivers, lakes and shorelines, over 10,000 acres of wetlands, and 3,400 miles of hiking, biking and nature trails.
• 3,100 playgrounds and community recreation areas were improved, restored or constructed.
• 6,500 illegal dump sites were remediated.

Across the board, recycling totals reached new heights in 2010 representing a greater emphasis by participants and communities on recovering valuable resources:

• More than 266 million plastic bottles were collected for recycling, many through school-based programs, the most plastic bottles ever collected during the Great American Cleanup.
• The 7.2 million pounds of electronics collected for recycling represented a 5 percent increase over 2009. Moreover, volunteers kept 15.3 million pounds of aluminum and steel out of landfills through their collection efforts, a 12 percent increase from 2009.
• 1.1 million tires were collected for recycling, a 22 percent increase from last year.
• 91.5 million pounds of newspaper were collected for recycling, 150 percent more than 2009.