It’s Love the Boot Week, a statewide initiative to clean up trash and bring about awareness of the state’s ongoing litter problem. Keep Louisiana Beautiful spokesperson Melissa Kenyon said the project was developed to get boots on the ground and to motivate individuals to clean areas in their neighborhoods and businesses.
“So, we have businesses involved, governmental entities, schools, nonprofits, individuals, and families clean up this week,” said Kenyon.
The event takes place in conjunction with both Earth and Volunteer Week.
In 2022 for the inaugural Love the Boot week Kenyon said they had about 280 clean-up events and this year even more participation with over 500 events.
“About a 79% increase from last year, and with that amount we’re expecting about 14,000 volunteers to be engaged this week and we estimate about 500 tons of litter will be cleaned up by Sunday,” said Kenyon.
Kenyon said it’s easy to get involved, you can register for your own clean-up event or find one near you at LoveTheBoot.org. You can enter your zip code on the site and locate existing events. Kenyon said when you look at the numbers from a recent study, the amount of litter is staggering.
“This is the first one done since 2009, but we found that approximately 143.8 million pieces of litter are on Louisiana’s roadways. So, it’s definitely an issue that we need to address,” said Kenyon.
The first 250 organizations that register their Love the Boot Week events will receive cleanup kits, shirts, and supplies.
Comments