Green Mountain volunteers working to fight litter

Published on July 2, 2025

When it comes to fighting litter, it can be as simple as building some new, easy habits. That’s the approach for the Green Mountain Civic League in south Huntsville.

As chair of the group’s Beautification committee, Sarita Oliver has urged residents to keep their space tidy.

“We want to encourage people when you’re out taking your walk in your normal area, adopt that section and take a trash bag with you,” she said. “Pick up some trash while you’re out on your walk.”

It’s a straightforward strategy that is paying dividends.

“We don’t have complete and total mountain coverage but most of the major arteries have at least some coverage now,” Oliver said. “People have been good about doing their little sections and they do it when they have time and when the weather’s appropriate and they see trash. So it seems to be working.”

What’s frustrating for Oliver is that the litter seems as diligent about reappearing as Green Mountain residents are about making it disappear.

“It’s astounding to me that people come up here and to go to the North Alabama Land Trust or the Madison County Nature Trail and they’re not very neat,” Oliver said. “It’s discouraging in that I know that for us, just for our stretch, we pick it up and usually within a week, we start seeing it again.”

In addition to the informal cleanups where residents collect litter while out for morning or evening walks, the Green Mountain Civic League also puts together two mountain-wide cleanups.

It’s a grueling process to keep the litter picked up as fast as it hits the ground. But a collective of small efforts add up to a big effort and that’s what Oliver is seeing from volunteers on Green Mountain.

“I’m hoping to expand on the cleanups a little bit as we move forward,” she said, “but I was pretty pleased with how many people stepped up and said, ‘Yeah, I’ll take this section.’”