STATEN ISLAND — Staten Island's about to start some spring cleaning.
Borough President James Oddo, along with City Council members and the Staten Island Chamber of Commerce, announced a six-part plan to clean up Staten Island and get litter off the streets including bolstering the litter response team and having residents Tweet and Facebook about problem areas.
"Drive down any road, particularly our main streets, and you will see litter-strewn roads," Oddo said in a statement.
"The most frustrating part of it is that this is Staten Islanders causing the problem. We cannot blame this on anyone else. It is the person throwing the empty box of Newports or McDonald’s bag out their car window, multiplied by hundreds."
The clean up efforts, which expand upon the three part plan announced by Oddo and Councilmembers Vincent Ignizio and Steven Matteo in October, will increase the borough president's Clean Team, start an on-call mobile litter response team, and ask the public to tweet, Facebook, email or call in dirty streets to Oddo's office.
Oddo also sent letters to government agencies to push them to maintain and cleanup their properties, called on local businesses to donate money to help expand the mobile response team, and Oddo said his staff has been working with the MTA to start an Adopt-a-Train station program.
“Litter in our community is more than just a nuisance — it has a direct effect on our quality of life,” Ignizio said in a statement. “Litter invites more litter, more graffiti and more crime. It sends a not-so-subtle message to residents and visitors that we don’t care about our community, so why should anyone else?"
Starting on April 15, Oddo said his clean team will work with Center for Alternative Sentencing and Employment Services three times a week to pick up trash — instead of the usual two days from previous years — until October.
The group's also looking to partner with other community organization to schedule cleanups for the other two days, Oddo said.
For larger jobs, Oddo will use the $20,000 he allocated in his last year in City Council to fund a on-call mobile litter response team run by Project One, which will start in a few weeks.
And Oddo said his office has been working with the MTA to finalize the Adopt-a-Train station proposal, which will let private businesses maintain stations in reward for advertising at them, which he hopes will be finished soon.
