Building Community Through Cleaning
On a cool April morning in Iowa City, a small group was spread across North Market Square Park equipped with high-vis vests, mechanical claws and giant bags.
Each member diligently scans the ground in front of them as they walk, pausing suddenly as something catches their eye.
They reach down and carefully clamp down on their target; plastic wrappers, bottles, cigarette butts and other debris are all plucked from the ground as the group works through the three acre large zone.
What might otherwise seem like a routine city-sanctioned cleaning is part of a growing grassroots effort organized through the Iowa City Litter Crew, a community group focused on keeping local spaces clean. By gathering residents who care about the places they live, the group turns routine cleanup into a shred community effort.
Their work reflects a simple idea:
When neighbors take responsibility for their environment together, they can create visible change.
The Iowa City Litter Crew is a volunteer-driven group dedicated to reducing litter in public spaces throughout the Iowa City area. Members coordinate cleanup efforts in neighborhoods, parks and along busy streets, as well as more discrete areas such as along streams and less-traveled walkways.
Thier mission is to connect residents who want to give back to their community, meet like-minded neighbors, and make the world a cleaner place.
As participation has grown, the group has become a visible example of how local volunteers can work together to address everyday environmental issues. Their efforts highlight the role community members can play in maintaining shared public spaces.
“I got tired of seeing the litter, so I decided to start picking it up.”
For Cara Keller, addressing litter in Iowa City began with a frustration she gradually turned into consistent action.
Over time, Keller became increasingly bothered by the amount of trash collecting in parks, parking lots and waterways throughout the city, much of it accumulating in places residents passed every day without noticing. Rather than continuing to walk past the problem, Keller decided to begin organizing cleanup efforts herself.
But Keller said the Iowa City Litter Crew was created for more than environmental reasons alone.
“Part of the reason why I started this group is because I’m divorced and it’s challenging to make new friends as an adult,” Keller said. “I thought I could start a group and we could all pick up litter together and make new friends.”
What began as a small community meetup eventually grew into a larger volunteer network built not only around cleaning public spaces, but also around creating connection between people who shared a common sense of responsibility toward their community.
The central concern highlighted by many members of the Iowa City Litter Crew, such as Angela Lambertz and Melissa Serenda, is the continued buildup of waste around their hometown.
“The urgency is increasing… it’s incredibly frustrating. The environment’s degrading, getting sicker,” said Lambertz, "You don’t have to wait for some legislation… You just go out and fill a bag of trash and then like, boom, it’s cleaner."
Serenda agreed, emphasizing that littering not only affects the appearance of the city but also contributes to broader environmental concerns, including impacts on local ecosystems and waterways.
“I would love to see the city ban so-called disposable vape gadgets… They have a battery in them. We can’t throw them away because they have a battery in them. They’ll start landfill fires.” they added, underscoring the importance of community participation alongside policy solutions.
Waste items, like the ones collected during group cleanups, can remain in the environment for decades-- or even centuries-- which underscores the long-term impact of everyday litter.
How Long Common Litter Items Stay in the Environment
Hover over each bar to see how long common litter items can remain in ecosystems after being discarded.
For Melissa Serenda, picking up litter started as a personal habit and grew into something much larger. As a longtime Iowa City resident, she began cleaning up trash along the Sycamore Greenway nearly a decade ago after noticing how much waste collected in the area’s stormwater system.
What began as occasional cleanups quickly turned into a routine. Week after week, Serenda returned with bags and gloves, clearing debris not just from the trail itself but from surrounding neighborhoods to stop trash before it flowed in.
“I love the trail, and I hated seeing trash in it,” Serenda said. “I know nobody else is going to pick it up, so I might as well.”
Over time, her solo efforts revealed a larger pattern; litter wasn’t isolated or occasional, but constant, often carried in from nearby streets and businesses.
What she initially saw as a local nuisance became a persistent environmental issue hiding in plain sight.
As Serenda continued documenting and collecting trash, she realized much of the problem remained invisible to the average resident.
Areas she cleaned regularly could appear spotless only hours later, masking how much litter had actually accumulated there beforehand.
“I could pick up one stretch of road once a week, and somebody could drive that same stretch the day after I clean it and think there’s no litter there at all,” Serenda said. “They never see us picking it up.”
This sentiment was echoed by fellow member Angela Lambertz as well, reflecting on how many people assume a litter-less area is "the default".
For Serenda, that realization is what pushed her further into the work of the Iowa City Litter Crew after discovering the group’s use of the Open Litter Map, a digital tool volunteers use to document the waste they collect. The map allows members to track where litter appears most frequently and identify patterns across the city, transforming what might otherwise seem like isolated cleanup efforts into visible and measurable data.
For volunteers, the mapping effort serves another purpose beyond organization: showing residents and local leaders that litter remains a persistent issue even when it is not immediately visible.
Iowa is the third-most active U.S. state on OpenLitterMap, a total of 28,792 tags split between six users. Five of the six those Iowa contributers are in Iowa City, giving the area one of the highest average-tags-per-person in the nation at 5,520.2 tags/person.
Along with their obvious statistical achievements, the Iowa City Litter Crew has continued to grow, with some cleanups having over twenty volunteers. But many members say that the sense of community has only grown tighter.
This small team of strangers have spent hours walking trails, parks and roadside areas together, talking while they work and forming friendships through the repeated routine of cleanup events.
That shared responsibility and support has helped transform what could otherwise feel like solitary volunteer work into a collaborative effort centered on both environmental stewardship and community connection.
Just as Cara Keller had hoped for over three years ago, this group has and will continue to have an incredible impact on the community, environment, and eachothers lives.
“We’ve become friends. We made it a place where people can come out, spend time with other human beings, and do something good for the city.”
-Melissa Serenda
“It helps me feel like I’m part of something that’s real... I feel like they care about me, I care about them, and we care about the mission.”
-Angela Lambertz
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