Highway cleanup begins

Roadsides across lower Michigan will get their first cleanup of the year beginning Saturday as the 2017 Adopt-A-Highway program gets underway.
Overseen by the Michigan Department of Transportation, Adopt-A-Highway will take place over three collection periods this year. The first runs Saturday through April 23. A summer pickup takes place July 15 to 23 and a fall pickup Sept. 23 to Oct. 1.
Volunteers collected about 65,000 bags of trash last year, an estimated $5 million value for the state. There are 2,887 groups currently active in the program, and they’ve collected more than 2 million bags of litter from the state’s roadsides since 1990. Currently, 6,400 miles of highway are adopted.
MDOT Director Kirk Steudle said the agency appreciates the hard work of Adopt-A-Highway volunteers.