Green Up Day, observed on the first Saturday of May, is a state wide effort in the US state of Vermont

Vermont

Vermont is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. The state ranks 43rd in land area, , and 45th in total area. Its population according to the 2010 census, 630,337, is the second smallest in the country, larger only than Wyoming. It is the only New England...

 to clean up roadside trash

Litter

Litter consists of waste products such as containers, papers, wrappers or faeces which have been disposed of without consent. Litter can also be used as a verb...

. The first Green Up Day was April 18, 1970 and was started by Governor Deane C. Davis

Deane C. Davis

Deane Chandler Davis was born in East Barre, Vermont. He was the 74th Governor of Vermont, from 1969 to 1973, and a delegate to the Republican National Convention in 1948....

. In 1979, Green Up became a non-profit organization

Non-profit organization

Nonprofit organization is neither a legal nor technical definition but generally refers to an organization that uses surplus revenues to achieve its goals, rather than distributing them as profit or dividends...

. Ten percent of the funding for the event comes from the state with the non-profit organization Green Up making up the remainder.

Process

Green trash bags are distributed throughout the state which are then used by volunteers to clean up the roads in their area. Although citizens can pick up bags at the local town hall, the program is not fully state funded. The volunteers are often asked to pick a location that they will be responsible for which is often the road on which they live. The bags are often left on the road side for pick up by trash collectors or can be brought to the local town dump.