In the spring of 2024, 150 youth from Santa Fe participated in the Governor’s School Community Challenge. The students collected 180 bags of trash at Salvador Perez, Ragle, DeVargas, and SWAN Parks. These parks are among the most popular in the City and the presence of litter detracted from the enjoyment of residents to enjoy these public spaces. The students represented Santa Fe High School, Capital High School, Mandela International, Early College Opportunities, Boys and Girls Club of Santa Fe/Del Norte, and the Mayor’s Youth Advisory Board.

As part of the Challenge, each team recoded a challenge to another city in New Mexico to complete a similar cleanup event in their community. The team that cleaned up DeVargas Park challenged Albuquerque schools to clean up their parks. The team that cleared litter from Ragle Park issued a challenge to the students of Roswell to improve the cleanliness of their public spaces. A Santa Fe High School team that swarmed Salvador Perez Park to pick up trash issued a challenge to Farmington to do the same. Lastly, the team from Capital High School challenged the Las Cruces students to clear their community of litter and trash.

The New Mexico Department of Transportation, the City of Santa Fe, and Santa Fe County provided staff and equipment to make the challenge a success. Snacks were donated by Food King and award funds were generously donated by Zia Factory Outlet Home Sales and Mark Duran and Associates.

Events held over an eight-month period had remarkable success, collecting 8,203 tires equaling 134.71 tons of unwanted tires in total across all sixteen Tire Amnesty Days. After unwanted tires were collected, the City of Albuquerque’s Solid Waste Department assisted with compacting and shredding these materials for reuse. The ASK Academy located in Rio Rancho, also picked up 70 tires from the events and reused the recycled materials to create a rammed Earthship structure. Bernalillo County’s goal for the future is to continue to educate the public about proper scrap tire disposal.

The City of Carlsbad partners annually with Eddy County and the Bureau of Land Management for Riverblitz, an event that focuses on litter eradication in their community, driven by volunteer participants. In 2024, the event was responsible for the clean-up effort along 12 miles of the Pecos River and collecting 21,385 pounds of litter. Riverblitz was a major success, with plans to hold the 2025 event on March 1st.  

The City of Carlsbad and Keep Carlsbad Beautiful participate in several ways to eradicate litter from their community. In the past year, they have placed six trash receptacles along the MainStreet District to reduce litter, as well as organize several community clean-up opportunities. One-hundred and thirty-six youths from 24 youth groups participated in clean-up activities throughout the community in the past year. In partnership with NMTD, the City of Carlsbad and Keep Carlsbad Beautiful, were able to use $12,000 in grant funding to pay stipends to these youth groups for their efforts. In total, the youth groups dedicated 90 hours to clean-ups in Carlsbad eradicating 36,156 pounds of litter across 45 miles.

Throughout the last year, the Village of Ruidoso carried out several diverse efforts to ensure their community was a clean environment for its residents and tourists alike. In partnership with the New Mexico Clean and Beautiful Program, the Village was able to place bear-safe receptacles around Alto Lake to encourage patrons to dispose of litter in receptacles and prevent litter in and around the lake. The Village also held their annual community clean-up events, Toss No Más and the Great American Clean-up with the help of community and youth volunteers. The Toss No Más River Clean-up saw 12 miles of waterways cleaned and 3,650 pounds of litter collected. During the Great American Cleanup event, 34 miles of roadways and waterways were cleaned, resulting in 6,000 pounds of litter collected.

The Village’s collective clean-up efforts pledged to eradicate debris and litter from lakes, adapt-a-miles, and roadways, resulting in 3,000 miles of litter recovered, with the assistance of 181 paid youth volunteers participating over the course of 453 hours throughout the fiscal year.

During the last school year, the City of Santa Fe successfully implemented an educational campaign to teach elementary students about the negative impact of litter in their community; their education initiative reached 324 students ranging from kindergarten to fifth grade.

With the help of Clean & Beautiful grant funding, they distributed copies of the book “Critters Don’t Litter” to City of Santa Fe elementary students. In tandem with their educational efforts, the City of Santa Fe in partnership with Keep Santa Fe Beautiful, supported volunteer youth clean-up events, like Toss No Más and the Great American Clean-up to empower youth to act in removing litter from their community. Through these two clean-up events, volunteers successfully eradicated nearly 30 tons of litter over 209 miles of open spaces, trails, and city neighborhoods.

Recently, Bernalillo County experienced a significant increase in illegal tire dumping and dump sites. Illegal tire dump sites are a clear environmental, health, and safety concern for several reasons, including but not limited to attracting rodents and mosquitoes. In an effort to combat this issue, Bernalillo County, in partnership with the City of Albuquerque Solid Waste Department, and the New Mexico Clean and Beautiful Program held sixteen tire amnesty events throughout the County to encourage and educate residents to properly dispose of unwanted tires. Each County resident was able to dispose of a maximum of nine tires each per event free of charge; tires were not accepted from commercial businesses.

Events held over an eight-month period had remarkable success, collecting 8,203 tires equaling 134.71 tons of unwanted tires in total across all sixteen Tire Amnesty Days. After unwanted tires were collected, the City of Albuquerque’s Solid Waste Department assisted with compacting and shredding these materials for reuse. The ASK Academy located in Rio Rancho, also picked up 70 tires from the events and reused the recycled materials to create a rammed Earthship structure. Bernalillo County’s goal for the future is to continue to educate the public about proper scrap tire disposal.