50,000 tires, 12,000 mattresses, and mountains of trash hauled away: Clean California marks three years of progress

News

Jul 30, 2024

What you need to know: California is commemorating a major milestone with its key initiative to beautify communities up and down the state, and creating over 18,000 jobs. The program has hauled away more than 2.6 million cubic yards of litter - enough to cover nine lanes of Interstate 5 with an inch of trash from San Diego to the Canadian border.

SACRAMENTO - Governor Gavin Newsom's historic Clean California initiative celebrated three years of service today in statewide beautification and cleanup projects. Launched in July 2021, the sweeping $1.2 billion initiative has - and continues to - beautify the state's highway system and local communities by hauling away mountains of trash and investing in hundreds of transformative local projects.

For decades, trash piled up on California's highways and in our communities without a concerted, comprehensive effort to clean it up. Three years ago, Clean California became our answer. Countless neighborhoods in every corner of our state are cleaner and healthier thanks to Clean California.

Governor Gavin Newsom

Thanks to Caltrans, Clean California and its partners have so far:

• Hauled away more than 2.6 million cubic yards of litter - enough to cover nine lanes of Interstate 5 with an inch of trash from San Diego to the Canadian border
• Hosted more than 500 free dump days in communities throughout the state
• Collected 12,000-plus mattresses
• Collected 50,000 tires
• Enlisted nearly 60,000 community clean-up volunteers, and
• Created over 18,000 jobs, including positions for individuals who were formerly incarcerated, on probation, or experiencing housing insecurity.

The program's first three years included a surge in the number of cleanup crews collecting trash on public highway rights-of-way. But an equally important goal of Clean California has been to extend a zero-litter philosophy beyond the public highway system into every local community and instill renewed pride.

So far, 94 of 312 projects have been completed, and another 171 are expected to be finished in the next 12 months. As one example, Kern County last month celebrated the completion of a major parks project in the underserved community of Lost Hills that benefited from a $2 million Clean California local project grant. This included five new state-of-the-art play facilities, installation of ADA-compliant sidewalks, a sports field, running track, and community centers.

At the ribbon-cutting, longtime Lost Hills resident Rosario Velasquez said, "Forty years ago, I did not have this kind of park for myself as a child to come and play. So, for me to bring my kids to this amazing structure, it's a life-changing opportunity for my kids. I honestly never thought my community was going to grow, and it's become something very special where I don't want to move out of Lost Hills, nor my kids."

Clean California has also invested in community engagement and education to extend the anti-litter revolution well into the future. This has resulted in Adopt-A-Highway participation leaping by 50% from about 3,000 to 4,500 stretches of state roads being adopted and cleaned up by the public.

For more information, visit CleanCA.com.

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