[SoDu How-To] Adopt a Durham Street

Last week, after it cooled off a little, the kids and I put on our orange vests and gloves, picked up our grabbers and our heavy-duty trash bags, and made our way from Primrose School along Juliette to Cook Road.

“Bottle!” Athena shouted, plucking one of those little airplane vodka bottles out of the roadside grass with the clutching tool. She dropped it into my bag.

John Michael found some soft drink bottles. Athena discovered a scattering of pine tree-shaped car air fresheners. Along Cook Road, on the sidewalk, we carefully gathered shattered glass from a broken bottle that could’ve hurt a walking dog or a barefoot child.

It was our first time tending to the one-mile stretch of Durham roads that we adopted on behalf of Southpoint Access through the city’s Keep Durham Beautiful Adopt-A-Street program.

You can adopt a street near your home too!

How Can You Adopt a Street?

The program allows groups to pick a mile of city-maintained roadway that they’ll keep clean at least once a month for a year. Currently, the Keep Durham Beautiful program has enlisted more than two dozen groups to cover 27 miles of street. Here’s how it works:

• Fill out the interest form and select a street or streets. Don’t have a favorite? The Keep Durham Beautiful Team can help pick one.
• Sign a one-year contract to commit to litter removal on the adopted street.
• Get re-usable supplies (grabbers, gloves, vests, garbage bags) from the city. These are free, but donations are appreciated.
• Each month, report cleanup results through a reporting form or via email to info@keepdurhambeautiful.org.
• If you can’t dispose of trash from the cleanup yourself, let the city know where to pick it up.
• If the contract term ends and isn’t renewed, unused supplies must be returned to the city.

How Can You Stay Safe?

Keep Durham Beautiful provides safety rules and guidelines for volunteers to make sure they stay safe while removing trash along the city roadways.

Stay safe by:

• Wearing light-colored clothing that covers arms and legs.
• Wearing sturdy shoes or boots. No open-toed shoes.
• Bringing a hat and water bottle.
• Wearing clothes that won’t impair vision or movement.
• Staying clear of construction. (For example, our adopted street route includes Roxboro Road where it fronts the new Murray-Massenburg Elementary School. We’ll wait until school’s open to clean there!)
• Not working during inclement weather.
• Drinking plenty of fluids and taking breaks when it’s hot.
• Dressing warmly with layered clothing when it’s cold.
• Watching out for snakes and stinging insects. Bring a first-aid kit that includes bug repellent, sunscreen, and poison ivy treatment.
• Using proper lifting techniques (knees, not back).

Other rules of the roadside:

• Park vehicles clear of the roadway or walk to the cleanup site.
• Only remove garbage during the day.
• Review the safety rules for all participants before each cleanup.
• Don’t use drugs or alcohol during a cleanup.
• Don’t pick up dead animals or touch hazardous objects. Call 911 immediately if you find anything that could endanger the public.
• Don’t put debris in the street or in front of someone’s property without permission.
• Don’t put debris within five feet of a trash bin, telephone pole, tree, or other obstruction.
• Put litter in black bags and recyclables in clear or white bags.

Want to help us keep these roads clean? I’ll share the next time we’re planning another cleanup!