March 28, 2025

April is Earth Month, so choose a day to go out and pick up a nearby roadway or trash-strewn area. Maybe you’ll make it a habit and then make it really official by adopting a stretch of road to clean up on a regular basis through the City of Bainbridge Island’s Adopt a Spot program.

If you don’t have your own grabber, trash bags and disposal method, here’s what you can do:

  • Borrow a grabber from BI Zero Waste. Email Diane Landry to inquire. For those hard-to-reach places, we have one 10′ extendable grabber, also.
  • Pick up white trash bags at Bainbridge Disposal’s Coppertop office, 9423 NE Business Park Ln., even outside of business hours. (See photo below of bin containing litter bags.) Take a litter cleanup guideline sheet from the bin, too. The bags and guideline sheet are also available at city hall.
  • Fill up bag(s) with roadside litter and place next to your own or a neighbor’s (with permission) trash can, and during April it will be picked up for free. Or you can drop off the roadside litter bag(s) for free at the Bainbridge Disposal Transfer Station during April.
  • Fill up regular trash bags with recyclables and dispose of relatively clean, non-flat cans and bottles in your regular recycling. Read below for what to do with dirty or flat cans and bottles.

Litter Pick-up Guidelines

Before you start

  • Choose a roadway or lot.
  • Wear bright, reflective clothing if picking up along a road.
  • Use the white Kitsap trash bag if you want to dispose of litter for free.
  • Borrow a grabber, if you like, from Zero Waste. Request from bizerowaste@sustainablebainbridge.org.

When you finish

  • Set your white Kitsap bag of trash next to a regular garbage can (with permission if not yours) or take to the transfer station and let the booth attendant know how many bags you have. Bainbridge Disposal is tracking how many bags are collected.
  • Empty your bag of recyclables into your curbside recycling cart. (Do not recycle the plastic bag in the cart.)
  • Please send bizerowaste@sustainablebainbridge.org a short email to say…
  1. General location of pick-up
  2. Name of group or organization if a collective clean-up
  3. Number of bags of trash
  4. Number of bags of recyclables
  5. Optional:  any photos or anecdotes

What to do with certain recyclables you pick up

  • Dirt-filled glass bottles – Put in trash.
  • Dirty, cracked plastic bottles – Put in trash.
  • Liquid-filled bottles that you can’t empty – Put in trash.
  • Dirt-filled aluminum cans – Put in trash.
  • Completely flat aluminum cans – Recycle in scrap metal at the BI Senior/Community Center or transfer station or put in the trash. (If flat cans get put in curbside recycling, they tend to get separated with paper at the sorting facility,  contaminating the paper stream.)

General safety guidelines

  • Do not pick up anything hazardous, sharp, large or heavy. This includes needles (even if they’re contained), chemical containers with liquids, containers with unknown liquids, furniture, tires, etc.
  • We don’t encourage anyone to empty containers for recycling because they may contain needles or biohazardous liquid.
  • Highway cleanups are not advised.
  • High-vis is required for roadsides.

Thank you for helping to keep Bainbridge Island litter-free!