Seneca Township High School’s 30 MPH event speeds through trash pickup

Spring has sprung in Seneca—and so has the trash. Bottles, wrappers, cans and other litter line the roadsides and ditches in and around this village in LaSalle and Grundy counties. The mess doesn’t sit for long as groups of Seneca Township High School students pick it up one mile at a time during an annual spring event called 30 MPH.

The students are not alone when picking along U.S. 6 and Illinois 170, assisting them is District 3 operations staff who supply orange trash bags, post warning signage, provide trucks to shield the teens from traffic and haul away trash.

“I think it’s a mutual relationship. I think IDOT appreciates us doing it,” said Jeff Maierhofer, a Seneca Township High School agricultural teacher who created the event. “I would not do the big routes if we didn’t have IDOT here. Even when we started this thing, we’ve had IDOT from the very beginning.”

The yearly event cleans up roadsides to keep vegetation healthy so it can do its job controlling soil erosion and filtering rainwater, creating habitats for wildlife and pollinators. It also allows IDOT highway maintainers to focus on other, essential, road maintenance.

“This is a great program where IDOT can help highlight the high school’s message of the negative impacts of littering along community roadways all while promoting traffic safety,” said District 3 Design and Planning Engineer Yogesh Patel.

The roots of 30 MPH began with the high school’s FFA chapter, which Maierhofer advises. The group participates in IDOT’s Adopt-A-Highway program and chose to clean Illinois 170 south of town. When a volleyball coach suggested FFA adopt U.S. 6 through Seneca, thoughts of expanding the effort set in.

“Why doesn’t the volleyball team do that? Why can’t the basketball team? Why can’t we get the whole school involved in this?” Maierhofer recalled. “And we did. They bought into it.”

The first 30 MPH was held a day before the school’s spring break in 2001. Students assembled in the gym and heard instructions from IDOT about handling trash before hitting the streets. Maierhofer said the event’s name drew its inspiration from the first-year students picked trash along 30 miles of roadway in and around Seneca in an hour. Enough to fill two 20-ton dumpsters, equaling roughly 40 cubic yards of garbage.

30 MPH remained steadfast in cleaning trash in their community since 2001, whether it was in Seneca or the other towns in the school district. During COVID, when they couldn’t gather, a virtual 30 MPH had families sign up to clean up stretches of road and post their work online. Maierhofer said students and their families cleaned 60 miles of roadway.

The event has captured widespread community support. In addition to IDOT, 30 MPH receives food, vests and supplies from area businesses. Also, Seneca’s fire and police departments, the LaSalle County Sheriff’s Office and surrounding townships offer traffic control.

A gratifying result of 30 MPH is that the amount of litter around the community has decreased. Maierhofer said 15 to 20 cubic yards of litter is picked up each year – less than half of that collected in 2001.

“It’s satisfying that we’ve taken a whole generation of kids that had to pick up somebody else’s garbage and they get it now,” he said. “They understand. And the community knows what 30 miles per hour means. It means don’t throw your stuff out your windows.”

This is Maierhofer’s final year of coordinating 30 MPH as he’s retiring from the school district. Even though he’s not leading the charge of dozens of teens through the streets of Seneca, he’ll continue to clean the ditches around his home—something he’s done since childhood.

“It’s been pretty satisfying that it’s lasted this long,” he said. “I don’t know what their objectives are next year to keep it going, but hopefully everyone that’s been through the program so far knows about the garbage out there.”