When it Comes to Litter – Even One Dude Can Make Difference

​Ridding Pennsylvania's roadways of litter is a monumental task that requires an army of volunteers but is also an act of service in which every individual can make a difference. Just ask The Dude - if you happen to know who he is.

Also going by the moniker of His Dudeness, this avid Pennsylvania Department of Transportation (PennDOT) Adopt-A-Highway (AAH) participant has 10 miles of roadway he cleans every year, mainly on his own.

"I was seeing the garbage every day," The Dude said of his morning commute through Venango County. "I thought 'who else would I expect to do it?'"

So shortly after the pandemic, The Dude, or El Duderino if you are not into the whole brevity thing, adopted his first stretch of roadway not too far from his home. From there his participation grew as he continued to pick up miles along his path to work. Each time he adopted another area he requested to have a nickname, inspired by the cult-classic movie "The Big Lebowski," put on the sign in place of his own identity.

"(I) do it just to do it and I wanted other people to do it just to do it," he said. The Dude also does it because he loves the outdoors, cares about the environment, and wants to better his community through service.

"It's amusing how far back some of the garbage goes," he said during a recent outing to clean an area near the border of Cranberry Township and the City of Franklin. He has unearthed bottles and papers that appeared to be several years, if not decades, old. He has also found other historical and interesting items covered for years by litter. "After you clean everything up and remove all that noise, there's cool stuff (to discover in nature)."

He also finds a lot of the repeat offenders on the list of common types of litter - beer cans, fast food wrappers, and cigarette butts.

"Garbage breeds garbage"

Since 1990, PennDOT has sponsored the AAH program to enlist volunteers across the state to help beautify the area along the roadways. The Department encourages its AAH volunteers to clean their designated miles in the spring once the snow melts and again in the fall before the weather gets cold.

Volunteers are provided gloves, bags and safety vests, and bags of garbage are hauled away by state employees when requested.

Last year in the northwest region of the state more than 2,100 bags of litter were cleaned up through the program. Statewide, approximately 32,800 bags of litter were collected by volunteers and disposed of by PennDOT in 2023.

So far in 2024, almost 1,200 bags of garbage were turned over for northwest region PennDOT employees to discard.

The Dude hit his route aggressively in the spring, collecting nine bags in March alone. Recently in just ten minutes, he had traveled less than a quarter of a mile in one direction and nearly filled a bag.

He is hoping that his efforts and the humor people might find in his name will inspire others to get involved in the program.

"It doesn't take as much work as you think," he said. "It keeps it (litter) out of our waterways. Garbage breeds garbage."

In northwest Pennsylvania alone, there are 1,328 miles of highway adopted through the anti-litter program. A steady increase from just under 900 in 2019, according to the region's AAH coordinator, Cheryl Wimer.

Wimer highlights the Knights of Columbus in Crawford County as the region's longest running volunteer group and the Waterford Lions Club as the group that registered the most trash collected over the years with 402 bags.

The growing number of participants makes the northwest region, the PennDOT district with the largest number of miles currently claimed through the program, but it is not where the most garbage was collected. That designation went to the Philadelphia area in 2023 with almost 5,200 bags, more than double that of the northwest region.

"If you average 40 pounds per bag it equates to 43 tons of trash volunteers reported for picking up in 2023 in District 1," Wimer said.

"That's a task our employees could never accomplish alone," said District 1 Executive Brian McNulty. "We are so grateful for our volunteers, both longtime groups and those who just signed on this year."

It's not too late to adopt a roadway and participate in the 2024 clean-up effort. The program, which requires a two-year commitment, is open to any group or individual and a variety of roadway lengths and adoption areas are available. To sign up, renew an adoption, or register a cleanup time, go online to adoptahighway.penndot.pa.gov.

As for The Dude, he envisions a day when all the miles in Venango County are adopted and cleaned. "It would be a cool bragging right. And it's totally doable here."

Subscribe to PennDOT news and traffic alerts in Crawford, Erie, Forest, Mercer, Venango, and Warren counties at www.penndot.pa.gov/District1.

Information about infrastructure in District 1, including completed work and significant projects, is available at www.penndot.pa.gov/D1Results. Find PennDOT's planned and active construction projects at www.projects.penndot.gov.

Find PennDOT news for the northwest region on X or Facebook.

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MEDIA CONTACT: Jill Harry, [email protected] or 814-678-5035

The Dude clears up litter along Bredinsburg Road (Route 2006) near the intersection with Route 322 in Venango County.​