The roads, parks and trails of the Tri-Town may look a little bit cleaner thanks to the efforts of volunteers and town employees who came out in force to pick up trash on Earth Day on Saturday, April 22.

In Marion, Boy Scouts, Cub Scouts and Girl Scouts met at Washburn park before they scattered around town to clean up anything they could find.

According to event organizer Kristen Saint Don-Campbell, volunteers in previous years collected “a few tons” of garbage around town — even a “half-buried car.”

This year, with the help of the Marion Department of Public Works and Tabor Academy students, the scouts in Marion found old trash barrels, metal sign posts and many garbage bags-worth of trash.

According to Saint Don-Campbell, Marion Select Board member Norm Hills reported that he found 144 “nips,” little plastic alcohol bottles, around the bridge to Wareham.

Volunteers cleaning up Route 6 in Marion also found a large number of “nips” littering the roads along with baseball cards, soda cans and lottery tickets.

“My mom and I do this kind of thing a lot,” said eleven-year-old Lily Cunha, who was cleaning up Route 6 with her friend Caroline Hilton, 12. “We do a lot of beach cleanups and this sounded like fun — I thought ‘heck, if we’re going to hang out, lets [clean] together.’”

At the Sippican School playground Elizabeth Schwebach, 10, found candy wrappers, plastic snack wrappers and “part of someone’s sunglasses.”

Schwebach said that it made sense to find so many candy wrappers at a school playground because kids might have eaten their snacks outdoors.

At Silvershell Beach, Girl Scouts Peyton Melanson and Mia Whinnem found water bottle caps, spoons and even a champagne bottle.

Melanson said that “turtles can … choke and die [on trash], and if the last [turtle] dies then they would be extinct.”

Meanwhile, in Rochester, the Women’s Club joined forces with the Rochester Boy Scouts and the Highway Department to clean the streets for Earth Day.

The Rochester Women’s Club has been sponsoring an Earth Day clean-up for about 20 years, said event organizer and Women’s Club member Marsha Hartley, who noticed that there was less trash on the roads than in previous years.

“We don’t see so many mattresses and tires on the roads anymore,” said Hartley. “The highway department has been really vigilant about cleaning up the big items.”

Along with providing trash bags and gloves, Hartley also handed out wildflower seeds donated by the Rochester Conservation Commission for people to plant as they cleaned the streets.

The Boy Scouts in Rochester put in some elbow-grease and cleaned up a partially-buried grill and rusted metal plates out of the dirt behind Gifford Park.

“We’ve got a whole bag that’s full of just metal,” said Zachary Gagne, 12. “A giant piece of rusty metal was buried under a tree.”

In Mattapoisett, the town-wide clean-up was organized by the Mattapoisett Public Library and people of all ages divided and conquered to clean the community.

At first glance, volunteers were surprised by how little trash there was on the streets and in Shipyard Park.

But on closer inspection, many little pieces could be found and collected.

“Every little piece of garbage counts for something,” said Scott Schachter who came with his family to help clean up.

There were areas with more trash, like bushes and shrubs that required more commitment to get the trash removed.

Chris “Cookie” Smith, a member of the Mattapoisett Council on Aging walking group, was happy to dive into bushes.

He exclaimed, “look what I got!” when he emerged with an empty plastic bottle or other larger trash items.

Donna Smith, who was also with the walking group, explained that she was happy to come out with friends to clean up.

”This is part of our walking group who meets on Wednesdays, and we walk the village so we figured we’ll help clean it up,” she said.

Over two hours about 65 volunteers were able to pick up an estimated 853 pounds of trash around Mattapoisett.