VAIL — After a multi-year hiatus, the town of Vail brought back its annual community cleanup this year. Hundreds of community members came out on Thursday and collected an estimated 5,000 pounds of waste from East to West Vail.

“As we’re transitioning from spring and into summer, the goal is to pick up all of the trash people have left behind, that’s being uncovered as all that snow melts,” said Beth Markham, Vail’s environmental sustainability manager.

The annual Vail event has been in “hibernation” since COVID-19. At its “first year back in action,” the cleanup had around 120 participants as well as the entire student body and staff from Red Sandstone Elementary School, Markham said.

“They were cleaning up in areas everywhere from Intermountain and West Vail all the way to the depths of East Vail,” she added. “We’ve had people all around town picking up.”

Markham said that the groups collected an estimated 200 bags of trash, each weighing around 25 pounds each.

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Dawn Ristow and Stephen Connolly were among the residents who joined in the cleanup on Thursday. The couple, who has lived in Vail for over 25 years, has participated in the annual event a few times over the years.

They turned out this year as an opportunity to give back to their community, Ristow said. That, and the promise of donuts, Connolly added.

While they collected plastic, cups, bottles, wrappers — and six socks — Connolly said he was “actually impressed with the lack of trash.”

“That’s because we see our streets department out there all the time picking up trash,” he added.

Markham hopes that this appreciation is a takeaway many of the participants have.

“Vail is typically pretty clean already because we have a top-notch public works streets crew who does an incredible job of keeping the streets and villages of Vail free of trash and litter,” she said.

After crews spent a few hours around town, they gathered at Donovan Pavilion for some lunch and to select a winner for its “weirdest item found” contest. A glass water pipe was crowned as this year’s winner, with an honorable mention going to a pair of pink and purple, lightning bolt-adorned boxers.

In addition to collecting trash left behind, there were special “poop patrols out in full force at some of the parks,” Markham said.

In total, these patrols collected 12 buckets full of poop — estimated to weigh around 30 pounds each — from Vail’s parks.

The cleanup serves as a reminder of the negative impact that littering has on the environment, including to wildlife, waterways and landscapes, Markham said.

“When people see others out there cleaning up the trash left behind, hopefully, it also raises an awareness that it’s not that difficult to dispose of things properly,” she added.

At home, Connolly and Ristow themselves are incredibly conscientious about waste — starting with what they purchase.

“We only throw about four cans of trash away all year, so we are super aware of what we put into our grocery basket. There are things that we won’t buy anymore because of the containers,” he said. “The whole key is preventing it from getting into the system.”

Among those who joined the cleanup was Town Council member and local business owner Sam Biszantz.

“It’s amazing how much trash you find on the side of the streets and how quickly it adds up — even if it’s like tiny little specks, all of a sudden your bag weighs like 40 pounds,” Biszantz said.

The council member started her morning cleaning up in Ellefson Park, winding around Davos and onto the frontage road back to Donovan Pavilion.

Among the items collected by Biszantz and the group she was with were “too much Styrofoam” as well as bottles, cans, cigarette butts, car parts, a spatula and a Platinum Amex card.

Through participating in the annual cleanup, Biszantz said it is obvious how microplastics are finding their way into the environment and water supply.

“When you pick up like a piece of like an old plastic wrapper and it disintegrates in your hand, it like becomes so obvious where microplastics come from,” she said. “It makes you aware that even the smallest piece of trash matters — maybe even more so because that’s harder to gather — you can see how it goes down the street, into the stream and into a fish’s belly. It’s depressing.”

“Even the smallest, tiny bit of trash matters is my big takeaway,” Biszantz said.

In the event’s return, Biszantz said it was great to see such a great turnout, acknowledging the varied participation from not only town staff and Vail residents, but from local businesses as well, including Vail Resorts, Gravity Haus, the Lodge at Vail, the Antlers and more.

Vail’s community cleanup is a precursor to the county-wide highway cleanup , which will take place on Saturday, May 6. This will be the 23rd year of the highway cleanup, which is organized by the Eagle River Coalition (formerly, the Eagle River Watershed Council). Last year, 870 volunteers collected waste from I-70, Highway 6, Highway 24, Highway 131 and Colorado River Road.

According to the Eagle River Coalition, the community cleanup day has seen a significant reduction in littering since its inception in the early 2000s. When it started, the cleanup collected nearly 50 tons of trash and now averages between 10 to 15 tons at the annual pickup day.