photo by Andrew Kearns

Clean Mill Valley Recognized!

Clean Mill Valley volunteers and adopters were acknowledged by the Mill Valley City Council with a proclamation on Monday, October 1st. In part it read:

Proclamation of the Mill Valley City Council
Celebrating and Recognizing the Dedication of
the Members of Clean Mill Valley for
Creating Public Awareness about Litter and
Their Many Hours of Volunteer Work
to Keep Mill Valley Clean and Litter-Free.

In addition, Maureen Parton, Aide to Supervisor Kate Sears, also acknowledged our work with Clean Marin and our leadership in ridding our communities of litter. Thank you, Maureen, one of our hardest working and consistent supporters. She also noted the work of Mary Osborn, the artist who has created Spot the Dog as well as Clean Mill Valley’s other litter graphics. Look for the banners in the Plaza downtown (see picture).

Spot the Dog (all six feet of him) did attend the city council meeting to bring attention to our Adopt a Spot program. We will bring Spot to events, particularly schools. He was the brainstorm of Maureen Parton and we thank her for that.

Clean Mill Valley continues to clean the Park and Ride Lot off Seminary Drive (West) and we are waiting for CalTrans to erect a sign that displays that we are the adopters. Be on the lookout.

Jill Young and Joan Murray tidied up downtown by removing litter to welcome the Mill Valley Film Festival. So many of you are working in your communities and removing litter close to home. Peggy Katcher has continued her passion by continuing to clean the entrance to Mill Valley at Tower and East Blithedale. She is the poppy lady who introduced and tends those brilliant orange flowers.

Karen Croy, a third grade teacher at Tamalpais Valley School, encourages her students to bring a piece of litter to class each morning. She is concerned about the environment and is teaching them to care about it too. A primary resolution to litter is to get to the source. Teaching children the impact of trash will have a significant impact. Thank you to everyone who continue to keep a little patch of our world litter-free!

About Clean Mill Valley

Founded in 2012, Clean Mill Valley has grown to include individuals and participants from many local and Marin County-wide organizations such as the Outdoor Art Club, StreamKeepers and Marin Clean Highways, as well as activists from other towns in Marin County. When referring to our combined organizations, we’re known as Clean Marin. Towns that have participants in Clean Marin are San Rafael, Corte Madera, and Novato.

As part of our outreach focusing on litter prevention, we have established a Merchant Program. Mill Valley merchants sign pledges to keep their places of businesses free of litter, to teach their employees the same and to recycle. We do have merchants in our town who are not particularly interested in keeping litter out of our storm drains and watershed. In rare cases we ask the City of Mill Valley to intervene if litter is a constant issue that friendly contact can’t resolve. We have noticed a difference in the cleanliness of our town since we began our work in 2012. Clean Marin will be rolling out their county-wide merchant program soon.

We also work with schools to spread the message and promote early education. We’ve worked with the Green Team at Mill Valley Middle School and with lots of individual students who demonstrate an interest in the environment and some who have to perform community service.

In addition, we coordinate with many other environmental groups and municipalities as part of Clean Marin to create county-wide awareness about the impact of litter and how to prevent it. The California State Water Resources Board will be implementing 'Trash Amendments’ that will require all municipalities to install filters on their storm drains to prevent trash from going into our creeks, bays and oceans. CalTrans will be required to participate, as well as schools and transit operators. We hope these ideas and practices will continue to spread across the Bay Area and beyond.

Accomplishments

Clean Mill Valley, in cooperation with the City of Mill Valley, helped evaluate the number and types of garbage cans in downtown Mill Valley. To reduce litter spillage and distribution by birds, the Public Works Department purchased “Bonnets” to solve the problem.

Tamalpais High School now carries litter reminders on their electronic message board and Clean Mill Valley is working with other organizations in the county to display similar messages.

Members have worked with the students and the Environmental Studies teacher at Greenwood School to help them engage in civic responsibility with litter and graffiti removal.

Worked individually with Mill Valley’s merchants to manage personal garbage containers that attract garbage overflow.

Our Goals

Create public awareness about litter and its impact to our community and the environment.

Educate the public about ways they can reduce or eliminate litter.

Sponsor periodic litter cleanups.

Work with other like-minded entities in Marin County and the State to reduce litter by sharing best practices.

Collaborate with local public officials and legislators to encourage enforcement of existing litter laws and work to create or strengthen legislation to address litter and its environmental impact.

Affiliations

Clean Mill Valley is a group of community activists from a variety of local organizations in Mill Valley as well as from several other Marin groups and towns. We believe that clean attracts clean. Visit the terrific organization All One Ocean to learn what they are doing at beaches and schools to educate the public. Clean River Alliance is doing their good work along the Russian River Watershed and members of Clean Mill Valley have joined them at Driftwood Beach in Jenner and along a creek in Rohnert Park. Marin Clean Highways is also a strong partner of ours and several members have adopted a Park and Ride on the west side of highway 101 at Seminary. Clean Mill Valley works with other organizations. An example of this is our recent cleanup with the Discovery Museum staff in Sausalito. We jointly worked on cleaning Horseshoe Cove there and with Sausalito Beautiful at Vista Point. It will take the efforts of all of us to reduce litter.

Clean Marin

cleanmarin.org

The Outdoor Art Club

outdoorartclub.org

Mill Valley StreamKeepers

millvalleystreamkeepers.org

Marin Clean Highways

marincleanhighways.org

The Rotary Club

millvalleyrotary.org

Mill Valley Chamber of Commerce
& Visitor Center

millvalley.org