CHARLOTTE — Wednesday is Earth Day, the biggest volunteer day for groups like Keep Charlotte Beautiful, working to keep our city and the air and water around it clean.
Channel 9’s climate reporter Michelle Alfini explains how they hope to make Wednesday’s efforts last all year long.
[ Earth Day 2026: How it started, what you can do ]
It takes a lot of work to keep Charlotte’s streets clean.
“Oh my gosh, so many cigarette butts,” said volunteer Cristina Giancarlo. “So, hopefully we make an impact today.”
Giancarlo is one of dozens of volunteers who picked up trash in Uptown for the city’s Clean the Queen Earth Day event.
Director of Keep Charlotte Beautiful, Jonathan Hill, said tackling city litter is a year-round effort.
“There are about four pieces of litter for every resident here in Charlotte,” he said.
That is around 3.7 million pieces of litter on any given day, according to a comprehensive litter study that the city released this year.
It breaks down how much trash ends up on the streets and what’s in it.
“Cigarette butts are No. 1,” Hill said. “About 25% of the litter on our street are cigarette butts.”
Then comes plastics.
“Smaller pieces of plastic under an inch long, food wrappers, plastic beverages and paper,” Hill said.
Trash on the streets will go down storm drains and into creeks when it rains.
“Those are just going to get slowly broken down smaller and smaller,” Hill said. “That happens faster when they’re outside.”
From there, they become microplastics and other pollutants that need to be filtered out of our water supply.
Hill said the city plans to target certain areas by adding trash cans and improving cleanup measures.
The next step is learning why that trash ends up in the street and how to stop the litter at its source.
He hopes volunteer days are a start in prevention and awareness.
Because if people can see the problem, all he must do is show them how to help.
“There are a lot of different ways to get involved just beyond Earth Day,” Hill said.