Nearly 900 volunteers came out to beautify the area by picking up litter as part of the 18th annual Truckee Day.

On Saturday morning, members of the community checked in at one of 22 locations around Truckee and spent two hours scouring local neighborhoods. By the end of this year’s Truckee Day, 4,250 pounds of litter were collected and removed. Another 1,300 pounds were collected in a North Shore cleanup.

The 2.1 tons of trash is a decrease from the 3.72 tons of litter removed at last year’s cleanup. Last year’s event also had a record turnout of roughly 1,000 volunteers.

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“I think that was just because everyone was sheltering in place and there were no other events,” Truckee Day Coordinator Eric Mertens said. “This (year) is a great turnout. It’s a really great showing of our community support.”

During the course of its 18 years, organizers have said that Truckee Day has seen a continuous decrease in the amount of refuse collected despite an increase in volunteers.

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Mertens attributed the trend of less trash to visitor awareness campaigns and the town’s volunteer program, Truckee Litter Corp, which collects trash the first Saturday of each month.

Aside from Truckee Litter Corp, several businesses in town incentivize picking up trash by offering cleanup supplies and rewards for full bags of litter.

Along North Tahoe’s shores, roughly 60 volunteers turned out to collect litter as part of the 26th annual clean up day. After hours of work on Saturday morning, roughly 1,300 pounds of litter was collected.

For more information on Truckee’s litter mitigation programs, visit http://www.keeptruckeegreen.org.

Justin Scacco is a reporter for the Sierra Sun. Contact him at jscacco@sierrasun.com or 530-550-2643