As we all strive to preserve the beauty of our planet, Earth Day stands as a powerful reminder of the collective efforts needed to maintain our natural environments. Celebrated every year, Earth Day is a great time for all of us to get outdoors, take in some fresh air, and clean up the trash and litter left behind by our fellow humans. This year, Bottleless Nation, in collaboration with Keep America Beautiful®, took a significant step forward, participating in the #152PickUpChallenge and uniting communities and businesses in a nationwide clean-up initiative.
Joining us were our affiliates at Artesian Bottleless Water, Office H2O, and Pure Water Partners – all proud supporters of Bottleless Nation and the Bottleless Nation Charitable Foundation. Together, these organizations and their crews embodied the spirit of community and environmental stewardship.
A total of 212 volunteers gathered across 26 diverse locations, including parks, beaches, riversides, lakesides, roadsides, business parks, and local paths. Their mission was simple yet impactful: to clean up and beautify these areas, making them more enjoyable and safer for everyone. And boy, did they succeed!
Impressive Results Across the Board
It was a beautiful day in nearly every location, and every volunteer rolled up their sleeves and got right to work! Challenged with picking up at least 152 pieces of garbage per person, these crews showed up willing and ready. And they definitely understood the assignment.
Collecting 387 bags in all, we estimate that these crews picked up nearly 63,855 pieces of litter, including approximately 20 larger items like shopping carts, abandoned traffic cones, tires, car parts, and even a toilet. While our focus is usually on the smaller stuff, picking up and properly discarding these larger items was also an important reminder of just how much our trash impacts this planet. These items, often overlooked, pose significant environmental hazards and were safely removed thanks to the efforts of our volunteers.
The #152PickUpChallenge: A Quantitative Look
So, what is the #152PickUpChallenge? It’s a neat initiative that’s part of the Great American Cleanup®, America’s biggest community improvement effort. Each year, folks from all over join forces to clean, beautify, and rejuvenate their local environments.
The concept is simple and totally doable: collect 152 pieces of litter from your local surroundings, like parks, neighborhoods, or beachfronts. This specific number not only gives us a tangible goal but also highlights how collective actions can lead to significant environmental improvements. But how did they come up with 152?
According to the Keep America Beautiful 2020 National Litter Study, there are 50 billion pieces of litter across the country. So, if every American picked up just 152 pieces, it would all get cleaned up!
The #152PickUpChallenge is a perfect way for individuals, families, or groups to make a positive impact without feeling overwhelmed. Organize a cleanup day with your colleagues or a weekend outing with your friends or family. It’s an engaging way to contribute to your community while spending quality time with people you enjoy being around.
Looking Ahead
All in all, Bottleless Nation is proud of the volunteers who stepped up to their local communities to help beautify these landscapes. As a company dedicated to eliminating our dependency on plastic bottles, we feel it is vitally important that we play an active role in keeping our local parks, trails, waterways, and beaches clean. Plastic and human litter have no place in the natural landscapes and ultimately do more harm than good. But thanks to the willingness of over two hundred volunteers, our first cleanup event kept thousands of pieces of trash from making their way into our oceans and harming our environment.
If you would like to learn more about Bottleless Nation and how we aim to become #OneBottlelessNation, give us a like and follow on Facebook or Instagram. You can also snag your own Bottleless Nation merch when you visit our website. We give 15% of every sale back to The Bottleless Nation Charitable Foundation, which then helps us sponsor great organizations just like Keep America Beautifu
