News Flash

International Coast Cleanups, September 1 – October 31, various locations in Hampton. Need volunteers to be site captains and cleanup crew members for each site. Most cleanups will last no more than two hours. Land and water sites available. Boating cleanup volunteers must provide their own boat and have their own life jackets. Contact causink@hampton.gov for more information.

Interstate Interchange Cleanup Volunteers Needed! We need adult volunteers who HATE the litter on our interstate ramps to help Public Works clean it up about twice a month on Saturdays starting in October, tentative start time 9am. Public Works will provide safety measures, HCCC will provide equipment and transportation to the ramps along with all the appreciation we can give you. Contact hccc@hampton.gov for more information. Sign up for one ramp or all of them! We just want to get those nasty things cleaned up!

Community Cleanup, Little Back River Road, September 20, 9am – 10:30am. We need volunteers to help clean up this corner of Hampton. Contact cfharris@hampton.gov to sign up and for more information.

Community Appearance & Litter Index, October 9, 8am – 5pm, lunch provided. We need adult volunteers to evaluate 100 areas of Hampton for litter, abandoned vehicles, graffiti, illegal signs, and outdoor storage. Volunteers will be trained in the use of the index before embarking on the day-long event, transportation provided from HCCC. This activity is required for HCCC to retain its good standing with Keep America Beautiful. Contact cfharris@hampton.gov for information.

Seize The Bay Trash-to-Art Show Call for Artists: The third biennial Seize the Bay trash to art show is about to launch! Sponsored by Hampton Waterways Restoration Project [HWRP] and Hampton University Museum, and supporting the Chesapeake Bay Foundation and Hampton University's oyster restoration program to clean our waterways. Artists are asked to create artwork that celebrates the Bay, and if possible, to use "found objects", aka trash, in the pieces. Artwork would be donated and auctioned off at the show November 2-9, 2019 at the Hampton University Museum on HU's campus. Open to all! Pieces created for the previous two shows were incredible and everyone is looking forward to what you've got this year! Here’s a link to the Facebook Album showing the 2017 show: http://bit.ly/SeizeTheBayArtShowAlbum.

Contact causink@hampton.gov with any questions. Thank you all for your help in the past and in advance for this year!

Check Out & Clean Up! Did you know you could check out cleanup equipment from our libraries? You can clean up your street, your neighborhood, or a nearby park! Yes, you CAN! Try it out! Ask at your favorite library branch! Have you tried it yet?

Recycle Right Tip of the Day! Did you know you know… steel cans are made from iron ore? Did you know that steel cans are 100 percent recyclable? They aren’t the biggest part of our waste stream, about 18 million tons, but it’s a shame to neglect to recycle them. They can package more than 1,500 types of food and household products.  They can be recycled into new cans, railroad tracks, cars, or bridges! What’s not to love about such a versatile material! Here are some steel can recycling guidelines.

• Please include only clean, dry steel food and beverage cans in your recycling container.
• Recycle Wrongs include: tableware (forks, spoons, and knives), pots and pans, car parts, screws, nails, mailboxes, file dividers, among many other items.
• Recycle Rights: juice cans, soup cans, vegetable cans, coffee cans, pet food cans, fruit cans, meat cans, sauce cans, and many more.

If you have questions, ask 311 or HCCC (hccc@hampton.gov).

Plastic Bag Recycling: You CAN recycle plastic bags and wrap, but ONLY at store or civic organization drop-offs. As a matter of fact, you can drop them off at Hampton’s community gardens or HCCC to help earn plastic benches for the community gardens. The locations are: North Phoebus Community Center, 249 W. Chamberlin Avenue; Phoebus, 124 S. Hope St.; Buckroe, 710 Buckroe Avenue; or HCCC, 1296 Thomas Street. The Hampton Master Gardeners and Peninsula Master Naturalists also collect them, and when school starts, some schools will collect them for competitions.

What’s the Matter With a Little Litter? Oh boy! Let us count the ways litter matters!

1. From Keep America Beautiful’s Litter Overview Fact Sheet: “• Over 51 billion pieces of litter appear on U.S. roadways each year. Most of it, 46.6 billion pieces (91%), is less than four inches. That’s 6,729 items per mile of roadway.”
2. Here, just take a look at this fact sheet: https://www.kab.org/sites/default/files/LitterinAmerica_FactSheet_LitterOverview.pdf.  
3. The litter on your street washes down through the storm drain into a creek or river, then into the Chesapeake Bay, and tides then wash it out into the Atlantic Ocean. Groups like Clean Virginia Waterways and the Ocean Conservancy estimate that about 80 percent of the trash littered on land ends up in the water, unless someone like you picks it up.  
4. According to Keep America Beautiful: The presence of litter in a community decreases property values by a little over 7%, according to the National Association of Home Builders pricing model.
5. Do you like birds? Who doesn’t, right? According to a January 11, 2019 article in “The Spruce”, litter presents all kinds of problems for birds, from entanglement to digestive blockages to poisoning. And who can forget the awful pictures of dead sea birds stuffed with litter.