Caltrans Works to Clean California in Eureka

Press release from Caltrans:

Clean California is more than just a slogan – it’s a call to action.

Caltrans is picking up litter on highways statewide and encouraging the public to do their part to keep their local communities clean and beautiful. As part of a statewide day of action to highlight the new program, Caltrans District 1 Director Matthew Brady, maintenance workers, Adopt-A-Highway volunteers and others cleared litter and beautified a stretch of U.S. Highway 101 south of the City of Eureka.

“The Clean California initiative confronts one of the most persistent challenges in the state – litter on our state highways and local roads,” said Caltrans Director Toks Omishakin. “The $1 billion, multi-year cleanup effort will remove roadway trash, create thousands of jobs and engage communities in beautification efforts to transform our roadsides into places of pride.”

“We spent most of the afternoon with one of our Adopt-A-Highway volunteer partners, Scott Hammond and his associates, picking up trash,” said Brady. “Californians, quite simply, litter too much. It’s frustrating to see this accumulation of trash along the state right of way. With this beautiful bay right next to me, to see this trash end up in that location is just unacceptable.”

Clean California is generating an estimated 10,000 to 11,000 jobs over three years, including opportunities for people experiencing homelessness, at-risk youth, and people re-entering society following incarceration.

The initiative represents a significant investment in litter collection and community engagement to transform unsightly roadsides into spaces of pride for all Californians. This statewide effort includes potential projects in all 58 California counties, with nearly a third of the funds being directly invested into cities, counties, tribes, and transit agencies to clean local streets and public spaces. Through litter removal, this initiative will protect our waterways, natural resources, public safety and health.

Clean California will also help drive a cultural shift of shared responsibility for the cleanliness of our roadways through litter prevention education campaigns that focus on properly throwing away trash and the impact littering has on natural resources, waterways, public safety and health.

Caltrans collected 270,000 cubic yards of trash in 2020—enough to load 18,000 garbage trucks. Clean California will remove an additional 1.2 million cubic yards, or 21,000 tons, of trash from state highways each year, the equivalent of filling the Rose Bowl three times or enough garbage bags to stretch from Los Angeles to New York City.

Click here to view Caltrans’ images and video of the Clean California event.