Though they cited a multitude of reasons for coming, many of the people who gathered in downtown Evanston on Sunday to pick up litter ended up voicing a similar refrain.
“I think it’s honestly cleaner than we expected,” said Victoria Kindratenko, who works in a Northwestern University research lab. “I did a beach cleanup a weekend ago, and there was so much trash on the beach.”
“It’s remarkably clean,” said Allen Johnson, who came with several other residents of the Sherman Plaza tower. Indeed, he found downtown to be “clean as a whistle.”
The approximately 100 people assembled around noon at Fountain Square for an Earth Day-themed cleanup.
The Downtown Evanston business district bills the cleanup as one of its annual events, along with others like the well-attended S’mores on the Square and the cycling series Evanston Rides.
But this time, the belated Earth Day event came as the downtown organization has doubled down on its efforts to beautify the streets.
Before the crowd split into teams, one person from each group donned an orange safety vest emblazoned with the logo of BrightView, the landscaping firm that does trash collection downtown.
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The company also provided gloves, bags and trash pickers for Sunday’s cleanup.
Aside from the daily litter pickup by BrightView, a partnership with the shelter at the Margarita Inn provides additional cleaning, Downtown Evanston Executive Director Andy Vick said.
“We are focusing on trash collection year-round, but this is a specific event to honor Earth Day,” Vick added.
The Woman’s Club of Evanston also sponsored the cleanup. Along with collecting trash, its members helped check in the litter picker-upper devices at the tent set up at Fountain Square. The connection had helped draw Yishu Zhang, who worked her way up Sherman Avenue in a team with Kindratenko and Zander Schwartz.
Schwartz, who wore one of the provided orange vests, works with Kindratenko at Northwestern.
“We produce so much plastic waste, and this felt like a good way to offset some of our environmental impact,” Kindratenko said. “Of course, our picking up trash is so minimal in the grand scheme of plastic consumption.”
A half-hour and a couple city blocks into the cleanup, they estimated that they had collected 50 cigarette butts, something others also ranked as the most-found item.
On the other side of Sherman Avenue, 2025 mayoral candidate Jeff Boarini worked with another team. Before he started, Boarini, like the others, observed that downtown seems to have improved in its cleanliness.
Not that it should let people off the hook.
“It’s our town,” Boarini said. “You feel that sense of ownership. You’re willing to say, ‘I’ll pick that up and throw it in the trash. Somebody else should’ve, yes, but I’ll take a step out of my way and clean it up because I noticed it.’ ”