(Latrobe Bulletin) Keeping the community clean is something the people of Unity Township know how to do quite well.

The community has hosted, through its municipal government, an annual cleanup that has filled at times 50 rolloff dumpsters.

“We’ve had to get in there and push it down at times,” Unity Township Supervisor Mike O’Barto said of the amount of trash that’s been collected over the years.

Unity Township also has Westmoreland Cleanways and Recycling in its backyard. The nonprofit aims to keep the environment free of trash by recycling hard-to-recycle items, like tires and electronics.

Some items are taken that many wouldn’t expect like plastic shopping bags, which the recycling center collected 30,000 pounds of last year. Or shoes, 500 pounds collected, which are then either sent to a company in Florida that cleans them for use by others in countries that may not have access to new shoes, while the worn-out pairs are sent to energy plants to be burned to generate steam, said Michael Skapura, executive director of Westmoreland Cleanways.

The township and Westmoreland Cleanways, along with Salandro’s Refuse in Crabtree, have worked hand in hand to provide residents with an easy way to dispose of unwanted items that keeps them out of landfills, or worse, their backyards.

On Thursday, Skapura was joined by Unity Township’s three supervisors – Mike O’Barto, Ed Poponick and John Mylant – to sign a declaration promising to join 25,000 communities across America in picking up 25 billion pieces of litter from now until July 4, 2026.

When split amongst the communities taking the pledge, the large undertaking becomes much more reasonable — just 1 million pieces of trash picked up from each community.

Read the entire article

Learn more about the Keep America Beautiful Greatest American Cleanup initiative