AW Waste and Volunteers will soon be scouring the roadsides looking for trash during the year’s final Adopt-A-Highway pickup. Thousands of volunteers in the popular Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT) program will be picking up litter along highway roadsides from Saturday, Sept. 23, through Sunday, Oct. 1.

“As the fall pickup approaches, we’d like to thank Adopt-A-Highway groups for their hard work and community spirit again this year,” said State Transportation Director Kirk T. Steudle.

There are three scheduled Adopt-A-Highway pickups each year: one each in the spring, summer and fall. Volunteers in Michigan have been participating in the program since 1990. Every year, Adopt-A-Highway volunteers collect more than 60,000 bags of trash. The popular program has grown to involve more than 2,800 groups cleaning 6,400 miles of highway.

Motorists should be on the lookout beginning Saturday for volunteers wearing high-visibility, yellow-green safety vests. MDOT provides free vests and trash bags, and arranges to haul away the trash.