WILTON – Sara Spittel, organizer of a two-week roadside cleanup effort called it “an amazing project.”

She told the Board of Selectmen on Monday, May 2, her goal was to cover all 72 miles of town and state roads, “and that was done.”

She said the effort involved “over 100 families, both public schools and High Mowing, three fraternal organizations and the church.” Four people volunteered their trucks to pick up the bags.

The number of bags filled is unknown, she said, because some people took them to the recycling center themselves. She estimated “between 350 and 400 bags of trash. They picked up “a whole bunch of tires, a lawn mower and a mattress.”

There is still a section of the river that needs to be cleaned.

“I don’t know where we go from here,” she said. “I had a desire to see the whole town picked up at once a d that happened,” but it needs to on-going.

She said she had spoken with Police Chief Eric Olesen “to get more crews out there. We do have a littering ordinance. I would encourage people to cover their trash bins and their pickup trucks (on the way to the recycling center).”

It is very difficult to catch a litterer in the act, which is required to an arrest or a ticket.

Spittel is looking for ideas, she said, and suggested having school artists paint signs.

“I want to find 50 people to pledge picking up a bag a week, or a bag a month.

Selectman DJ Garcia said, “I’ll be the steward of Pead Hill.”

Board Chairman Kermit Williams said he was amazed by the number of what he called “airplane sized bottles of hard liquor” that he picked up along Route 31 South toward Greenville. “There were hundreds of them.”

Williams called Spittel “such a good organizer, and you were lout there working.”

She said areas of town where there are few houses, such as Mason Road and upper Dale Street near the flood control dam, collect trash. More trash cans are needed, she added, such as near Carnival Hill.

“We need to keep on top of it. It’s a statement of how we feel about our community”

For information, contact the town office.