The City of Peoria established the Mayor’s Litter Committee in 2007. The goal of the committee was to create awareness of the impact of litter, encourage people to not litter, pick up litter and host neighborhood cleanups. The cleanups were very inspiring to the neighborhood groups and to all of us who participated in them because of the overwhelming positive response from fellow Peorians to pitch in. Yes! Peoria!

Focus on litter is a simple concept that can lead to multiple positive benefits. Clean streets contribute to neighborhood pride. That pride leads people to make an effort to clean up. That sense of community contributes to strong neighborhoods where people want to stay. When we participate in cleaning up, it is impossible not to think about the unnecessary waste of fast food containers, cigarette packs, beverage cans and water bottles. What if we reduced consumption of things that generate waste and lived more sustainably?

Litter on our streets does not rank up there with some of the more harrowing challenges to our environment. But since human generated litter is so obvious, it is one issue that nearly everyone who cares about their neighborhood and our city agrees is a bad thing. Nearly everyone agrees that neighborhood litterers are inconsiderate people who should be fined for trashing our streets and neighborhoods. I have heard people accuse neighborhood kids of being the biggest litterers. My observation is that the vast majority of litter comes from people tossin’ litter out of their vehicles. During my tenure with the city, we considered establishing a dedicated phone number to encourage people to report drive-by litterers to the police department. For many reasons, we were unable to bring that idea to fruition. To vent my frustration, I wrote a song about litter.

Pride in Peoria is Picking Up Again!
Have you noticed all the wrappers, cups and bags cluttering our streets? Don’t it make you mad?
Some people don’t care, and that is really sad.
There are litterbugs who won’t ever change their ways, they go about their lives tossin’ litter everyday, and using our streets as their personal ashtray.
But there are more of us who want to keep our city clean. So let’s get together and work as a litter team! You know a city without litter is not an impossible dream.
Litter, litter, yeah, it’s a curse. But we can stop it from getting worse.
Here is one easy, simple way, pick up one piece of litter a day!
If you join this citywide campaign we’ll rid our streets of litter, and put the litterbugs to shame!
Because Pride in Peoria is Picking Up, again! Yeah, you know Pride in Peoria is Picking Up again!

The good news is that every day you can catch Peorians demonstrating their unconditional love for their neighborhood and our city by walking with a grabber and a bag traversing our streets, sidewalks and green spaces. Seems that wherever humans be, much litter you will see. So, with that in mind, maybe we should just think of picking up litter as its own reward!

Yes! Peoria!