Over 1,100 pounds of garbage collected during Green Up Day

A little more than a month ago, Newfield resident Mitch Raymond started to organize Newfield Green Up Day, modeled after Vermont Green Up Day, where volunteers spent the day picking up garbage on the side of the road.

On April 15, under clear blue skies with temperatures in the 70s, 50 volunteers took to Newfield streets to clean up garbage on the sides of multiple town roads.

Volunteers put the garbage in bags and left them to be collected by the Newfield Highway Department (NHD), which took the bags to Tompkins County Waste and Recycling (TCWR), which donated a free ton of garbage collection to the event.

Raymond said the NHD took more than 1,100 pounds of garbage to TCWR. That total didn’t take into account the volunteers who took garbage bags to their homes and disposed of the waste as part of their household garbage.

When he started organizing the event, Raymond did not have a ballpark for how many volunteers would participate or how much garbage would be picked up during the event.

“I think this proves that it’s well accepted,” he said. “What’s great about Green Up Day is, I don’t care if you’re Independent, Republican or Democrat, it’s something that everyone supports. No one wants to live in a trash heap. Everyone is really thankful for having a cleaner environment.”

Newfield Town Board Supervisor Mike Allinger was one of the volunteers, picking up garbage around Trumbull Corners off of state Route 13. Raymond said he was cleaning up at a rate that required him to leave his organizer table at the town hall to deliver more garbage bags to Allinger.

In the week following the event, Raymond said he already notices a difference in the scenery when he’s driving around Newfield.

“The biggest difference is going down Route 13 [toward Ithaca] and the divide between Little’s Lawn Equipment and Early Bird Farm. We hit that hard, and it is a heck of a lot cleaner,” he said. “Granted, we didn’t hit all areas. There’s a lot of areas out there that need attention; this is just the start.”

Raymond said that his family addressed the area of Route 13 themselves and filled three garbage bags that can fit 42 pounds of waste.

One of the areas that wasn’t addressed during the first Green Up Day was state Routes 34/96. The next Green Up Day has already been announced: it will take place April 20, 2024. 

“It’s not the end of the world, because we only had 50 volunteers and a month to go from idea to action,” Raymond said. “I think it was a great success, all things considered.”

When he started the event, Raymond wanted to model it after Vermont Green Up Day. He grew up in Vermont and has childhood memories of residents coming together to restore the state’s clean roadsides by devoting a day to clean up garbage that had accumulated over the winter.

When Raymond moved to Tompkins County in 2009, he was struck by the fact that New York didn’t have a similar statewide effort. Leading up to Newfield’s first Green Up Day, he said he wanted to show that people have an interest in cleaning up their towns, which could lead to a statewide clean-up day in the future.

Next month, Raymond is set to meet with the Environmental Management Council and County Legislator Randy Brown to create networking opportunities aimed at taking the event to the county level in 2024.

“The goal is to be more communitywide in Tompkins County next year, and then, if that’s a success, we can boost it beyond the county level,” he said. “I feel like we have to prove that we can do it in one county first.”

He said he hopes that in the next year, organizers from other towns in the county will attempt to have their own Green Up Days. 

“I’m going to be hyperfocused on Newfield, but if I can get these other environmental groups on board, I want to work with them because I can’t do it on my own,” he said. “If I can get some interest in other towns developing their own Green Up Days throughout Tompkins County, I’ll see that as a job well done, but I will be a part of Newfield’s Green Up Day.”

A post by Raymond on the Newfield Community Facebook page recorded more than 200 likes, which, he said, shows that there is community engagement in keeping Newfield cleaner that goes beyond the 50 volunteers.

“I want Green Up Day to raise the value of keeping a clean environment and have people voice if they are disheartened or do not like that on their road people are throwing out trash,” he said. “Maybe people will own up to it.”

Green Up Day is also meant to be a community-building event, according to Raymond. He said he felt that the volunteers expressed feelings of being a part of something bigger than themselves, which made the event a success.

“They felt an emotional reward in having a positive attitude and making a difference. That’s what I want for all the volunteers,” he said. “To feel that sense of community and feel like they made a difference.”

Raymond thanked Seth Dennis of TCWR, the NHD and Cayuga Watershed Network, which donated equipment for garbage collecting. He said that the help of those organizations was instrumental in making the event a success. Raymond hopes to make this an annual event that continues to grow within the community.

“Everything fell into place because of a lot of really good people,” he said. “This wouldn’t have happened without these organizations.”

Newfield Notes appears every week in Tompkins Weekly. Send story ideas to editorial@vizellamedia.com or geoffpreston8@gmail.com.