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On Earth Day, there are many ways you can show your love for the environment, including hosting a neighborhood celebration. As part of the celebration, you and your neighbors can take the opportunity to clean up the community. The cleanup effort will take plenty of planning. To help you prepare for the cleanup, here are some tips:

Rent a Dumpster

Throughout the day, you and your neighbors will be collecting large amounts of garbage and debris. Instead of inundating your own private trash cans with bags, you can rent a dumpster. The dumpster service can place the dumpster in the location of your choice and collect it when the community cleanup is complete.

Having a dumpster also gives you and your neighbors an opportunity to expand the amount of garbage that is collected. Instead of just picking up paper and aluminum cans, the dumpster can be used for broken furniture, toys, and some non-recyclables. Check with the service to learn what items you can and cannot place in the dumpster.

Invite Your Neighbors

A community cleanup effort requires the help of every available person in your neighborhood. Unfortunately, if your neighbors do not know about the cleanup, they cannot make plans to attend. Therefore, you need to make sure that ample notice is given to everyone. Ideally, you should start alerting everyone a month in advance.

There are several ways you can alert the members of your community. You can go door-to-door and collect signatures from everyone who wants to participate. You can also hang signs in local stores. If your community has a social networking account, post messages about the cleanup. A few days prior to the cleanup, reach out to people who have agreed to help and remind them of the upcoming day.

Have a Community Swap

As part of cleaning up the neighborhood, you can simultaneously host a swap. Items that are not quite ready for the dumpster can be exchanged with other neighbors. Not only is this a great way for unused items to find new homes, but it also helps to keep them out of backyards and other areas that could be harmful to the environment.

Make sure the area for the swap is different from the trash drop-off for the dumpster. Doing this helps to avoid confusion about which items are for keeps and which are being tossed.

Work with others within your neighborhood to find additional ways to clean up your community.