Big Sweep 2007 – Help Transform Our World
Countywide Event to Remove Litter from the Banks of Durham’s Streams and Lakes

City and County of Durham residents come out in record numbers during the months of September and October to help clean up Durham County during the annual North Carolina Big Sweep.  This year’s event, sponsored by the County and City of Durham, along with Keep Durham Beautiful, Inc.,  focused on removing litter from Durham’s streams and watersheds. 
 
North Carolina Big Sweep was founded as Beach Sweep in 1987.  In 1989, a public-private partnership officially became Big Sweep, the nation's first statewide waterway cleanup. Since its founding, North Carolina Big Sweep has had more than 200,000 volunteers and collected over seven million pounds of trash from North Carolina watersheds.  All 100 counties in North Carolina participated in this year’s clean up.  To learn more about this organization or this year’s upcoming event, visit http://www.ncbigsweep.org.
 
286 volunteers spent their time cleaning up 14 different sites in and around Durham, covering an estimated 26 miles. These dedicated volunteers picked up an estimated 9,495 pounds of trash that were polluting our watersheds. 363 bags of trash were collected as well as numerous items too big to bag up such as; shopping carts, carpeting, furniture, bicycles, 21 tires, aluminum siding, construction debris, wood scraps, muffler, chairs, benches, flood lights, a push mower, signs, cabinets, fencing, metal scraps, a ladder, a tarp, cooking grills, 2 boat props, car battery, toilet, tricycle, 2 children’s car seats, couch cushions, and much more….

On Behalf of NC Big Sweep the Durham Soil and Water Conservation District would like to thank the following citizens and team members for their hard work and dedication to our County.

We would also like to extend a special thank you to all those individuals and teams who participated but are not listed above.