Developed with a volunteer in response to his daily efforts to rid the city of dumping, this new program has revolutionized our ability to clean up illegal dump sites and interact with local residents.
Made up of only a handful of volunteers (anywhere from 1-8 people on any given day), the DumpBusters crew is able to work 7 days a week, 12 months a year. While the volunteers focus primarily on small dumps that are easily eliminated by a small group, they have also tackled the largest cleanup in our history. The DumpBusters crew also provides expertise to communities wanting to clean up difficult sites, assists in large events by doing prep work and/or returning to the site to finish the job, and is readily "on call" to respond to new dumping incidents. To date, our DumpBusters crew has removed almost 200 tons of debris from the city of Pittsburgh. Our goal for 2011 is to develop additional crews to expand beyond city neighborhoods throughout Allegheny County.
The nature of the DumpBusters crew and crew leader have enabled them to regularly engage local residents and to develop important, lasting relationships with neighbors at each site they’ve cleaned. This is critical in nurturing stewardship, preventing future dumping, and, ultimately, changing attitudes about how we all treat our natural spaces.
The success of DumpBusters has been frequently picked up by local media, including:
- WTAE News
- Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
- Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
In addition, DumpBusters’ crew leader, Joe Divack, was honored by Keep Pennsylvania Beautiful and the Pittsburgh City Council for his dedicated volunteerism.
If you would like to be notified of future DumpBuster activities, please sign-up for our mailing list.
Donations to the DumpBusters fund are greatly appreciated.
If there's something strange, in your neighborhood
Who you gonna call? DumpBusters
If there's something weird, and it don't look good
Who you gonna call? DumpBusters
- 2380 reads