Spring Cleaning in Hillside Neighborhoods

“We just want to encourage people to get out and clean.” — Kaleb Montgomery, KDC

Amid Earth Day celebrations, cleanup groups in Duluth, Minn. are coming together to clean up trash leftover from winter.

Many citizens join through advocacy groups like Keep Duluth Clean (KDC). KDC holds virtual cleanups since the beginning of the pandemic. Meaning, people participate through large groups, or individually in their neighborhoods. Last year the group was able to clear over 7 tons of trash from neighborhoods from East to West Duluth according to KDC’s Kaleb Montgomery.

The city also has an initiative through the parks and recreation department called Clean and Green, where members of the community can register to organize a cleanup aided by resources provided by the city.

Both projects encourage participants to fill out reports that help to collect data about the litter that is collected. The questions on the reports have mostly to do with hazardous materials, area’s cleaned, participation etc.

Duluth resident Sophie Williams said spring cleaning is the “least” we could do:

“It doesn’t take long to fill an entire trash bag.”

Although, there are some people who think that trash collection should be up to the city

Some also participate through their schools or universities, like students who attended UMD’s Campus Clean-Up. Others look to their neighborhoods. Friends of the Lakewalk (FOTL) showed up on Saturday to clean up the shores of lake Superior and surrounding neighborhoods.

The usual rapid snowmelt that Duluth hillside neighborhoods witness during spring tends to reveal the waste that is buried throughout the winter. This year, temperatures rose slowly and the rate of snowmelt slowed.

Duluth also unexpectedly had more precipitation this winter and spring than in recent years, so some cleanups have been delayed and rescheduled. The KDC cleanup was rescheduled to the last Saturday of April.