The trash pickup is at 8 a.m. Saturday morning on a 2-mile stretch of Highway 189. That’s the four-lane road between Provo Canyon and Heber City.
It’s the third year the Users and Tenants Association of the Heber Valley Airport has hosted it.
“It just seems like there’s more trash than normal,” said Heber City Councilor and Airport Board Member Scott Phillips, the event organizer. “With the construction in the valley and people taking their garbage to the dump on that route, things blow out on the highway and get stuck right up against the airport fence, and it leaves quite a mess to clean up three times a year.”
Those three times a year are spring, fall and early winter. About 30 volunteers joined the effort each time in the past two years.
Saturday morning, they’ll park on the side of the highway between mile markers 26 and 28. Trash bags, reflector vests and other materials will be provided, along with hot breakfast sandwiches from Kneaders.
“The users and tenants of the airport saw this area of road as a problem, as far as how much trash was being gathered there,” Phillips says. “We’ve done this five or six times now, and it makes a world of difference for that piece of road, the entrance into Heber Valley, to be clean and not cluttered with garbage. Many hands make light work, and the more we have, the more fun it is.”
The event counts for people looking to log official community service hours.
Kids are welcome, but children 14 and younger are asked to stay inside the airport fence to pick up trash.
