Town-wide Cleanup Day Nets 250 Bags of Trash/Recyclables

Revise staff and volunteers as the afternoon got underway

In addition to their reflective vests, volunteers wore commemorative t-shirts

Picture this: You are driving behind a Republic Services truck on a Monday morning, and it stops 250 times so the mechanical arm can empty containers, each with one bag of trash or recyclables.

That represents the amount removed from the streets, fields, and trails of Bedford Sunday afternoon by more than 100 volunteers at the first of what may become an annual town cleanup day sponsored by Revise, Inc., the Mass Save home performance contractor on The Great Road.

Supplies ~ preparing the registration area with vests, t-shirts, grippers, gloves, and bags to collect trash

Two vans were filled with trash and recyclables at the end of the day

The approximately 250 bags, split between trash and recyclables, filled two large Revise trucks and were hauled away. Most of the activity was concentrated on pre-selected zones, such as Davis Road, Fawn Lake and the narrow-gauge trail, the old reservoir area, and the Hartwell Town Forest.

“The volunteers worked tirelessly, on a warm Sunday afternoon, and Revise is forever thankful to those who helped make Bedford cleaner,” said Dan Carroll of Bedford, the firm’s chief operating officer.

It was a cooperative effort. “The assistance from our Town Manager Sarah Stanton, Police Chief Bob Bongiorno, and the Department of Public Works was a major reason for the successful cleanup day,” Carroll asserted. He noted that the DPW donated yellow safety vests to participants at the request of the town manager.

Town Manager Sarah Stanton and her office staff with Officer Abajian, volunteers from Boy Scout Troop 194 and FinCom member Erica Liu and her family worked along Hartwell Road’s curve

“It was the volunteers who made it all happen by walking deep in the woods — hauling out shopping carts, car bumpers, plastic bottles, empty alcohol containers, all around Bedford,” he said.

The organizers distributed more than 100 Bedford Farms gift cards to volunteers. Besides Stanton and Amy Fidalgo, assistant town manager of operations, they included Erin Dorr and Sue Swanson from the advocacy group Mothers Out Front; Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, and Cub Scouts; members of Bedford’s Finance Committee; along with dozens of family groups.