On August 12, in front of the Queens Public Library, several members of the Flushing Business Improvement District, the City of New York Department of Sanitation, and Councilmember John C. Liu (D – Queens) heralded the “Campaign to Increase Public Awareness” among residents to stop littering and keep the streets of Flushing clean.

About 30 youth supporters from Liu’s office held up signs that said, “Clean is Essential,” “Keep New York Clean,” and “We Need Our Street Clean.” They also passed out flyers and brochures distributed by the City of New York Department of Sanitation at the Queens Public Library. The flyers, which were translated into Chinese, Korean, English, and Spanish, urged the public to maintain a positive and clean image of Flushing.

According to Mabel Law, executive director of the Flushing Business Improvement District (BID), there are 10 BID cleaning staff members – and at least one of them is always assigned to clean the street seven days a week. But no matter how hard the staff members worked, Law added, they would not be able to clean up all the cigarette butts, soda cans and other trash that people litter in the streets. This is the very reason that Law wanted to tackle the cause of the problem and emphasize that the public should not only stop littering, but also should not dump their garbage into the public trash cans.

Liu said that the “Campaign to Increase Public Awareness” was intended to promote a united vision to continue a series of cleaning activities in Flushing. Since July 2006, the youth supporters of Liu’s office have taken up cleaning tools to clean the streets of Flushing. There are still two more weeks before the end of their summer cleaning activity. But they hope that, in the future, every resident will keep the streets of Flushing clean.