AKRON, Ohio — Debbie Miller is on a mission to keep her neighborhood clean—picking up over 50,000 pieces of litter across the 74 streets that make up her Firestone Park neighborhood, with a goal to pick up 100,000 pieces moving forward.
The mission Miller has set for herself started when she was walking her dogs through her neighborhood. There was a broken wine bottle along the walk, and before she could stop her pup, he moved in to sniff it, cutting his nose on the glass.
"I called the City of Akron. They said, 'We don't know what to do about our trash problem.' And I said, 'I know what to do about our trash problem: Start cleaning up trash,'" Miller recalled. "So I wanted to clean up the trash so that my dogs would have a safe place to walk. But I loved it so much, I just kept cleaning the trash until I cleaned the 74 streets of Firestone Park."
Since then, Miller has gone out every day, picking up trash for an hour or two. She's got a trash grabber and a trash can on wheels to take along with her on her walks. Miller has even added a recycle bin to her set up to sort out the cans she collects.
The efforts to clean up the streets culminated in over 50,000 pieces of litter being collected—and she's noticed a drastic change in how much litter is tossed in the neighborhood now that she's been cleaning it up—and she's noticed others slowly start to pitch in.
"When I first started, it was very difficult; I'd fill up a trash bag in a block. Now I can go out for two hours, and I only have half a trash can full of trash," Miller said. "I found a pile of broken glass on Aster [Ave.] and Firestone [Blvd.] the other day. I went back the next day to clean it up. Someone already did. That's a first. That hasn't happened."
Over at Keep Akron Beautiful, Miller's efforts have been greatly appreciated.
CEO of Keep Akron Beautiful Jacqui Ricchiuti knows how much efforts like Miller's matter.
"We actually have more litter than I've ever seen in the 10 years that I've been doing this job and working here," Ricchiuti said. "The litter is astounding right now. If you drive around the community, it's like we can't get it cleaned up fast enough."
Ricchiuti and her team have met Miller, but this weekend will be their first time working together as Miller continues her efforts to keep the streets clean in a different neighborhood. Miller will join Keep Akron Beautiful at the Summit Lake Community Center for their annual cleanup of the area where she'll share her mission with other volunteers.
Miller hopes that others follow suit and begin picking up trash in their neighborhoods, and Ricchiuti believes that could truly impact all of Akron if they did.
"Litter begets litter. If you see litter in one place, then people are more apt to throw it in that place. But cleanliness also begets cleanliness—if it's clean, people don't want to mess it up and make it dirty. So if people really take care of where they are, I think that will be beneficial for everyone who's in Akron," Ricchiuti said.
Keep Akron Beautiful provides people with supplies like Debbies—trash bags, gloves, Purell, recycle bags, trash grabbers, etc. To learn more about cleaning up your neighborhood, CLICK HERE.
Watch live and local news any time:
Download the News 5 Cleveland app now for more stories from us, plus alerts on major news, the latest weather forecast, traffic information and much more. Download now on your Apple device here, and your Android device here.
You can also catch News 5 Cleveland on Roku, Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV, YouTube TV, DIRECTV NOW, Hulu Live and more. We're also on Amazon Alexa devices. Learn more about our streaming options here.
