This giving season, a group of Boothbay Region High School students gave something back to their community. Donned in winter coats, safety vests and latex gloves, students walked from the school around downtown Boothbay Harbor Dec. 11 to pick up trash and help clean up the streets.   

Earlier this year, student Jackson Zehm presented the pickup idea to the Community School District School Committee. He said plastic utensils, wrappers and other trash get left on the side of the road and mixed up in snow as it’s plowed. A considerable amount can build up in snow berms; when the snow melts, that debris can be a part of runoff that goes into the ocean, creating an environmentally harmful mix. The students proposed a pickup day before snow piles up around the streets and in parking lots to help control pollution.  

The effort was part of the Maine Solutionaries Project, where around 4,000 students worked in teams across Maine to identify a problem and potential solution around an issue that affects their community. The pickup was one of two projects from the local high school focused on the environment and ocean around Boothbay, guided by teacher Emily Higgins. The other aims to build awarenessaround overboard discharge systems (OBDs), an alternative to traditional septic, and responsible chemical use. 

Higgins said the group planned two walking routes, coordinating with the town to dispose of several large bags of trash.