Armed with safety vests, gloves and many, many trash bags, volunteers from Marion came together on Saturday, May 12, for the annual town-wide Spring Clean Up.

“We’re covering the entire town of Marion! Every road!” said Tinker Saltonstall, Marion resident and member of the Marion Tree and Parks Committee. “It’s all about going green – making things look greener, fresher. Everyone needs to live their life with less of a footprint. The more we can reuse the better.”

Marion’s Spring Clean Up is an annual event that dates back more than 20 years, said Saltonstall. The day was originally held in conjunction with Earth Day in April, but due to the rainy weather the event is now held in May.

“In Marion, we still call it our Earth Day!” said Saltonstall. “We still have the Earth Day mentality even though it’s in May.”

Marion’s “Earth Day” is a three-hour event. Volunteers arrived at cleanup headquarters located inside the Music Hall to collect their gear. After, they all headed off to their assigned streets, which were broken up into half mile segments covering the entire town.

“We like to see participants volunteering to do their own neighborhoods!” said Saltonstall. “However, we do need a lot of volunteers to come and cover areas such as the on and off ramps to I-95, which are known for their large quantities of litter. Point Road also needs a lot of attention.”

Tabor Academy also participated on a much larger scale this year, said Saltonstall. The entire sophomore class, between 60 to 80 students, volunteered a few hours to pick up litter on County Road.

Once the bags were filled, participants were instructed to tie up and leave their bags on the side of the road.

“We have a brigade of pick-up truck drivers, including those from the Department of Public Works, driving around to pick up the full bags,” said Saltonstall.

The bags were brought to the bandstand on Island Wharf where two huge piles were created.

“It’s called Trash Mountain!” said Saltonstall. “This year there’s going to be two mountains because we clarified our recycling plan. So there is a pile of dark green bags for trash and then another pile of clear, plastic bags for recyclables such as glass, tins and plastics.”

On Monday morning, the Department of Public Works took the trash and recycling to the dump.

“We have a lot of participants from our local businesses and community organizations,” said Saltonstall. “All kinds of people helped make it work. We actually have more litter this year than we ever had in our lives! It makes you scratch your head and wonder, what’s going on here? So everyone definitely has something to do!”