Earth Day is this Saturday, April 21, with many Earth Day events in Alameda County happening through the end of April. Join your neighbors in celebrating our area's natural beauty and helping keep our creeks, shores and the Bay healthy!
Volunteers make a big difference. During last year's Earth Day activities in Oakland alone, over 2,600 participants collected more than 120 cubic yards of trash and more than 380 cubic yards of weeds and green waste—enough to fill about 1,550 35-gallon garbage bags!
Find out what's happening in Piedmontfor free with the latest updates from Patch.
Keeping litter off the ground in our communities is critical to our waterways' health. That's because litter is carried by rainwater, street runoff and wind into the storm drain system. From there it travels into creeks, the Bay and the ocean, as stormwater generally does not pass through a water treatment plant. In fact, 80% of all litter found in the ocean originates inland!
The Clean Water Program encourages citizens to stop litter at the source by always placing trash in garbage cans or recycling containers, buying reusable instead of disposable products and minimizing packaging as much as possible. To learn more about litter and other pollutants and what you can do to keep our waterways clean, visit www.cleanwaterprogram.org.