LANSING, MI (WKZO AM/FM) — Volunteers will soon be scouring the roadsides looking for trash during the year’s final Adopt-A-Highway pickup.
Thousands of volunteers in the Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT) program will be picking up litter along highway roadsides from Saturday, September 26 through Sunday, October 4.
In accordance with Governor Whitmer’s recent executive order, MDOT requires all Adopt-A-Highway volunteers to wear a mask outdoors when they are unable to consistently maintain a distance of 6 feet or more from individuals who are not members of their household.
There are normally three scheduled Adopt-A-Highway pickups each year – one each in the spring, summer and fall. A spring pickup period was canceled this year due to coronavirus concerns.
Every year, Adopt-A-Highway volunteers regularly collect more than 60,000 bags of trash. The program began in 1990 and has grown to involve more than 2,750 groups cleaning 6,300 miles of highway.
Motorists should be on the lookout beginning Saturday for volunteers wearing high-visibility, yellow-green safety vests. MDOT provides free vests and trash bags and arranges to haul away the trash.
Volunteers include members of civic groups, businesses and families. Crew members have to be at least 12 years old and each group must number at least three people. Groups are asked to adopt a section of highway for at least two years; there is no fee to participate.
Adopt-A-Highway volunteer groups are recognized with signs bearing a group’s name posted along stretches of adopted highway.
Sections of highway are still available for adoption. Interested groups can check the MDOT Adopt-A-Highway website at www.Michigan.gov/AdoptAHighway for more information and the name of their county’s coordinator, who can specify available roadsides.
