In September 2024, Bedford County Waste Management kicked off the Love Where You Live initiative, an effort to make it easier and more empowering for residents and community groups to pick up litter in their neighborhoods.

Groups can now check out a stocked clean-up kit from Waste Management. Each kit includes four pickers, four yellow safety vests, disposable gloves, orange trash bags and hand sanitizer. Multiple kits can be reserved for larger groups.

Here’s how it works:

• Step 1: Contact Bedford County Waste Management by email or phone (540-586-7656) to reserve a kit(s) for your group.
• Step 2: Pick up your kit from the Waste Management Facility’s administrative offices (1060 Recycle Rd., Bedford). Upon arrival, you will be asked to fill out a form with your name and area of Bedford County in which you plan to pick up trash.
• Step 3: Join with others in your community and “love where you live” by picking up litter. Be sure to snap some photos of you and your group in action, and post them on social media with the hashtag #cleanupbedco.
• Step 4: Return your kit to the Waste Management Facility and report how many bags of trash you accumulated. BONUS: Each person in your group will take home a bag of gifts made from recyclable materials!

The clean-up kits were made possible with funding from a grant from the Department of Environmental Quality.