EVERETT — Their rookie season was sensational, by all accounts.
The Litter Wranglers trash-pickup crew is back for their second spring and summer in action.
They’re out to tidy up the streetscape, fielding calls about garbage strewn along Snohomish County roads.
“Last summer, the crew was able to respond to a report within a week and get the site cleaned,” public works director Steve Thomsen said in a news release. “It has been extremely effective.”
The six-member trash squad started last year as a pilot program. Now they’re a permanent team. They started work in April and expect to continue through October, at least.
Their yearly budget of $120,000 comes from the public works department.
The dedicated trash squad helps free up more specialized employees to focus on their jobs, solid waste director Matt Zybas said.
Target areas for this year include unincorporated areas of the southwest county, Granite Falls, Sultan and Stanwood, officials said.
Progress so far tracks closely to last year. By early last week, the squad reported collecting nearly 1,200 bags of litter along almost 137 miles of roads. For the whole 2017 season, they rounded up 4,676 bags along 445 miles of road.
The new crew supplements the county’s Adopt-A-Road volunteer program. The temporary employees are trained as flaggers, helping them work around blind spots, heavy traffic and other dangerous areas.
Noah Haglund: 425-339-3465; nhaglund@heraldnet.com. Twitter: @NWhaglund.
How to report a mess
To report a litter problem in Snohomish County, email Litter.Wranglers@snoco.org or call 425-388-7500.
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