Volunteers gather to celebrate Earth Day at Mill Creek MetroParks with annual clean-up

Volunteers come together in Mill Creek MetroParks Saturday morning to celebrate Earth Day with the 'Earth Day Cleanup' event.

Groups worked together to clean up the area by gathering litter.

Among the items collected were tires, toys, furniture, pipes and garbage.

An organizer of Saturday morning's event says that the hope of the annual event is to recycle as much material from the clean-up as possible.

Another aim is to reduce littering at the parks.

Kurt Hilderbrand, Stambaugh District Committee Member of Scouting America said," Each year, I'm proud to say the number of bags of trash we get goes down. When I first started as scout master, we would collect 10 to 12 bags of trash over at the Bear's Den area. Now, it's maybe two to three bags."

Over the past 21 years, more than 23,000 bags of trash and 1,500 bags of recyclables have been collected.

According to a news release about the event, over the course of 42 years, 13,700 participants have volunteered over 51,000 hours to clean up various parts of the MetroParks.

Sponsorship for this year's event is in collaboration with the Recycling Division of the Mahoning County Green Team who provided volunteers with trash and recycling bags, gloves and grab-its.

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