Don’t Trash Wareham is back in full force and ready to resume cleaning up Wareham and Onset, with a first town-wide cleanup scheduled for the weekend of Sept. 21 and 22. 

The program began in 2015 when a group of citizens, concerned about trash and debris littering the town’s streets, parks, playgrounds and beaches, decided to reach out to the community for help.

And help they got. The program started small and eventually had more than 400 citizens who stepped up to participate in the annual spring and fall town-wide cleanups.

Streets, areas, and neighborhoods were “adopted” by individuals, families, friends, civic and church organizations, and teams. Everyone seemed to have fun working together, and teams even became creative with names such as Team Trash Talkers, the West Wareham Trash Warriors, the Trash Busters, the Main Street Trash Monsters, and the Selectmen Sweepers.

Original Don’t Trash Wareham founders, Nora Bicki, Judith Whiteside, Alan Slavin, and Jaime Rebhan-Buckminster are now joined by Recycling Committee member Amanda Cobb to reconstitute the revived program. According to Bicki, “the only reason we stopped was because of the pandemic. We had to cancel the 2020 spring cleanup and then never seemed to get back together to restart. But the time seems right now, and we believe we can get the community involved again.”

The first town-wide cleanup is scheduled on the weekend of Sept. 21 and 22 from 10 am to 3 pm with another one planned for next spring. Anyone who was involved in the past, or anyone who would like to participate this year is asked to email donttrashwareham@gmail.com to sign up for the September cleanup. According to Judith Whiteside, “our goal is to make this wonderful town a beautiful place to live and visit. We ask folks to take pride in keeping their streets and neighborhoods clean for everyone to enjoy.”

Don’t Trash Wareham also has a Facebook page that will be updated as more information is made available.