Local students clean up Lodi
Fifty-four Lodi Unified volunteers meet City of Lodi’s Litterati challenge
In 2020, Lodi Public Works teamed up with Litterati to challenge Lodi residents to clean up the city’s streets.
Volunteers download the free Litterati app, join a local challenge, and begin picking up trash on their own schedule. Each piece of garbage collected is photographed and tagged, allowing City of Lodi staff to monitor problem areas and keep track of cleanup data.
In addition to the year-long 2021 challenge — a call for the city to collectively clean up 20,210 pieces of trash, launched by Lodi High student Charlie Starr — Public Works issued a month-long “Spring Into Action” challenge for Lodi Unified School District for the month of April.
Local students and teachers took up the call, with 54 volunteers taking photos, tagging and bagging trash throughout the city using the Litterati app.
The “Spring Into Action” challenge goal was to pick up 3,500 pieces of trash. The students and teachers from Lodi and Tokay high schools and Joe Serna Jr. Charter School blew right past that goal, logging a total of 5,372 pieces of garbage cleaned up for the month.
The top offenders were cigarette butts (936 collected), drink containers (764 collected), and food wrappers (389 collected).
Locations where trash was collected in April included the streets around Adventist Health Lodi Memorial, Walmart, Downtown Lodi and Lodi Lake, as well as along many neighborhood streets.
Top student contributors were Damnpreet Kaur, who collected 582 pieces of trash; Samreen Kaur, 542 pieces; Rebecca Peters, 500 pieces; and Annemarie Van Meter, 433 pieces.
City of Lodi staff use the data gathered using the Litterati app toward maintaining the city’s stormwater permit.
As Lodi’s storm drains could potentially carry trash to local waterways, including the Mokelumne River, the city is required to take certain steps — including education and outreach — to keep garbage out of the stormwater system.
The Litterati challenges have become part of those efforts.
A new challenge, open to the community, will run through Aug. 15. The Lodi Summer Challenge encourages local residents to get “plogging” — a Swedish word for jogging and picking up trash. The goal for the community: Collectively pick up 2,000 pieces of trash before the deadline.
To join the year-long Lodi challenge, download the free Litterati app at the Apple App Store or Google Play Store.
New users may enter the code “NEWLODI” when making a free account.
Anyone with an existing Litterati account can select the “Challenges” tab, click on “Join a Challenge with a Code,” and enter “NEWLODI.”
To join the Lodi Summer Challenge, enter the code “SUMMER21.”
For more information, visit www.litterati.org/howit-works or www.lodiwatershed.com.