Trash Free Texas

Protecting our waters by connecting volunteers
to litter cleanup opportunities in texas

In Texas, over 435 million pieces of visible litter accumulate on roadways each year. It is in our community, the sides of our roads, in our rivers, and along our beaches. Litter control efforts cost the American taxpayers over $11 billion each year.

The Trash Free Texas “Adopt-a-Spot” site and Online Mapping Tool was created to foster a litter-free environment in Texas watersheds and track trash removal activities. Adopt a site to do your part to keep litter out of our waterways. Click around the Mapping Tool above to search for available sites in Texas. Click here if you'd like to look up sites at a specific location or address.

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* Trash Free Texas is continuously updating and adding information as it becomes available to us.

Trash is a big problem in Texas - in fact, it is ‘the size of Texas’.

what is the problem?

Litter is everywhere – in our parks and rivers, alongside roadways and on our beaches. Litter is unsightly, and it negatively impacts businesses, tourism and community pride. It also poses a threat to human health and safety, as well as wildlife and the environment. Approximately 80 percent of the trash found in our local streams, lakes and rivers comes from land-based sources, and eventually finds its way into the Gulf of Mexico and our oceans. We must prevent this trash from ever reaching our waterways by removing it from our communities.

Challenges to Overcome.

It is estimated that less than 1% of roads, streams, trails, transit station, and other public lands are adopted by volunteers or organizations for routine cleanups.
Volunteers wanting to adopt areas are not always aware of places that need adoption or who to contact.
Adoptions are managed by different entities in each community across Texas.
No internet technology or mobile device application system has been developed to unify ‘Adopt-A-” programs - until now...

Trash Free Texas address these challenges by working with communities and organizations across the state to connect people to places that need routine litter cleanup activities.

Why Trash Free Texas?

In Texas and across America, we must be able to connect people to places in need of routine cleanup activity. Volunteer efforts to remove litter, aquatic trash and debris are critical to our communities. When we connect people to places, we give our volunteers a sense of ownership and a stewardship ethos. This reduces littering and illegal dumping, which results in cleaner lands, healthier aquatic ecosystems, and lower costs to governments.

Our comprehensive data collection will make it easy for government leaders and Keep Texas Beautiful (KTB) affiliates to strategically identify and adopt out high need areas. Volunteers have an easy ‘point-and-click’ interface to select sites that match their skill level for safety and difficulty.

As part of the project development, the platform also allows community partners to gather data online that will help to support litter research and source control. We will also build a database of volunteers and create an online community where we can educate and encourage positive environmental change.