The Cascades Green Team sponsored a record-setting Spring 2011 Trash Bash last month. The event brought together the best-ever volunteer turnout and resulted in the bagging, recyling and discarding of the largest amount of outdoor litter ever gathered in the community.

Trash Bash coordinator Mark Lenko, President of Semper Technology and Vice President of the Board of Keep Loudoun Beautiful, reported that one of the clean-up volunteers found a waterlogged briefcase in a Lowes Island stream. Marie Lenko, co-producer of the event (and Mark’s wife), opened the briefcase and found a checkbook and business cards. She contacted the presumed owner and learned the bag had apparently been stolen from the car of an area resident. The bag and the owner were reunited, making the recovery of stolen goods an unexpected Trash Bash community service.

The beautiful day for the event drew 83 participants – families with small children, teens and several Scout troops. The project drew a 65 percent increase in participation over the record-setting Fall 2010 Bash, with volunteers on board from outside the Cascades community.

In less than four hours, volunteers gathered 34 bags of trash and 51 bags of recycling, as well as miscellaneous objects including car tires, poles and the above-mentioned briefcase. Since the first Trash Bash in October 2009, a total of 109 bags of trash and 150 bags of recycling have been gathered and removed by volunteers.

This year, the primary cleanup area was located near the Potomac Baptist Church.

“I want to thank Pastor Scott Hesler and the congregation for allowing us to use their parking lot as well as their restrooms, in addition to their participation,” Mark Lenko said.

“Paster Scott even helped me move all the collected litter to the Lowes Island Community Center,” he added.

Local businesses joined in the clean-up project by providing refreshments and more than $200 in cards and coupons for Trash Bash volunteers. Donations came from Giant Food (Cascades), Sports Authority (Cascades), Subway (Great Falls Plaza) and Robeks (Cascades). American Disposal Services provided support for the collection and disposal of the trash and recycling materials.

“To me, the Trash Bash is much more than just picking up litter because, truth be told, these areas we just cleaned will be polluted with litter again by the time the Fall Trash Bash rolls around – that is, unless people change their habits,” Lenko said.

He pointed out that the volunteers who cleaned up Sugarland Run in the fall couldn’t believe that it was filled with trash again just five months later.

“Picking up litter is absolutely critical, so it is very important that we continue doing that, but the focus the rest of the time has to be on litter prevention,” he said.

The Cascades Green Team provides many simple and straightforward tips for decreasing community litter. Try a few of them this week:

Use a covered recycling tote to prevent lightweight recycling from blowing away, which typically happens when using an open-top tote.

Adopt simple lifestyle habits such as choosing durable reusable products in place of disposable ones, including reusable bags for shopping and reusable beverage containers for portable drinks.