About The Great NS Pick Me Up

The Great Nova Scotia Pick-Me-Up is Nova Scotia’s largest volunteer-driven community clean-up program, promoting litter clean-ups across the province. Since the start of the program in 1992, the Clean Foundation has provided supplies and support to participants (individuals, groups, businesses, schools) to carry out community-based litter clean-ups.

In 2019 the Nova Scotia Adopt-A-Highway Program took over the delivery of Great Nova Scotia Pick-Me-Up Program from Clean. The new partnership with the Clean Foundation means that the Adopt-A-Highway will be able to broaden their reach and remove even more litter from the province than ever before. The Adopt-A-Highway is looking forward to this new endeavor and are excited to support community-based litter clean-ups in addition to their roadside clean-ups.

The Great Nova Scotia Pick-Me-Up is proudly sponsored by Divert NS and Nova Scotia Environment. Thank you to our amazing sponsors!

Litter is an eyesore, poses health risks, affects water quality, and is often mistaken as food by wildlife. Studies also show that litter begets litter, meaning people tend to litter in areas where there is already garbage on the ground.

Join thousands of other Nova Scotians in making our province beautiful and healthy.

COVID-19’s Impact in 2020

COVID-19 affected us all in so many ways.  One of the ways COVID impacted our 2020 season was by delaying our season opening to June 15th. Normally, we would launch our clean-up season during the early spring, which also happens to be our busiest time as many volunteers feel motivated to clean-up the litter which has been hiding beneath the snow all winter long.

Although we got off to a late start we are proud to say the amount of clean-ups were similar to that of  previous years, many of them being much smaller in size due to the restrictions that were imposed on group sizes. However, we still made a huge difference to the appearance and health of our parks, trails, roadsides, shorelines and communities. We can not wait to see what 2021 will bring us!

The Great Nova Scotia Pick-Me-Up’s Impact in 2019

In 2019, over 14,000 people participated in more than 557 clean-ups throughout the province. The teams picked up over 10,000 bags of litter and over 208,000 pounds of litter has been removed from our roadside and shorelines.

The most common litter items in 2019 were coffee cups and cigarette butts, with more than 50% of the teams reporting them as their most common litter item. To cut down on these items from entering the environment consider switching to a reusable coffee mug and keeping a garbage bag in your car. Before buying something, consider whether or not it is easily recyclable and if there are options with less packaging. All of these small changes help reduce what ends up as litter in our communities.

The list at right shows unusual items that were found by groups in the 2019 Pick-Me-Up season. Before disposing of any item, check to see if there are reuse options in your community. If none are available, determine what the proper disposal methods are in your waste region. Across Nova Scotia there are programs in place to ensure items such as needles, computers, and mattresses do not end up as discarded waste in our communities.