Adopt a Street

Additional Message

Keep Seattle streets litter-free by participating in Adopt a Street! Adopt a Street is Seattle's grassroots litter-removal program. Join the thousands of volunteers who clean up hundreds of miles of Seattle's city streets where they live, work, school, play, and pray.

Three Adopt a Street volunteers from the Rainier Beach Action Committee pose with their cleanup tools.
 

What does it mean to "adopt" a street? Adopting a street means that you will make a commitment to clean up litter along a street segment of your choice. As you participate, we will support you, provide free supplies and safety equipment, pick-up and dispose of collected litter, and keep track of all the amazing work you do to keep your street litter-free!

How it works
Adopting a street has never been easier!

  1. Sign up: Choose a street or block you’d like to clean up – however often you’d like
  2. Request Supplies: Let us know what you need to clean up safely, and we’ll provide it for free! 
  3. Clean Up on your schedule, with friends or go solo!
  4. Report your cleanup!

Sign Up as a Volunteer Today!

Adopting a street is fun and flexible! Clean up alone, on your way to work or school, or with your business, school, club, or faith-based organization!

Many adopters choose their block, a street on their way to school or work, or a street near a park they often visit. Check out where streets have been adopted already, and which streets need your help.

If your street has already been adopted, we welcome co-adoptions to minimize the work for individual volunteers.

Want to earn an Adopt a Street sign?
If you or your group is interested in working towards an Adopt a Street sign, volunteer for least 1-mile of street, a minimum of 4 cleanups per year for two years or longer, and a minimum of 75 combined volunteer hours.

Once you’ve decided where you’d like to adopt a street, fill out the Adopt a Street Sign-up Form. Use the form to let us know where you’d like to clean up and how to keep in touch with you. We’ll reach out to you to let you know if your adoption is confirmed or if we have questions.


If you are unable to signup online, please contact us and we’ll be happy to work with you to get you signed up!

Start Cleaning Your Street!

We offer equipment and supplies to help you have a safe cleanup experience.

We provide litter grabbers, safety vests, gloves, garbage bags, yard waste bags, sharps containers and other supplies as needed. Complete the online supply request form to request the supplies you need.

Decorative image of supplies

Please be intentional about following safety guidelines. During your cleanup, all Adopt a Street volunteers must:

  1. Wear safety equipment
  2. Sign a Volunteer Sign in and Acknowledgement Waiver in order to be covered under the City’s Volunteer Insurance Program.

Learn more about our safety procedures, and watch our helpful safety video

Report your Cleanup!

Your reporting is how we track the success of Adopt a Street. We need your help!

Let us know what you cleaned up and if your litter bags need to be collected by submitting a Cleanup Report Form online (download the Cleanup Report User Guide and watch the how-to video). 

Unable to report online? Please email or call us with the following information: the number of participants, the total hours your group volunteered, where you cleaned, how many bags you collected, and where we should pick up the bags (intersection or address, and a photo if you can).

Check out our Adopted Streets Stats to see the impact that you and other Adopt a Street volunteers are making across the city.

If you have 2 or more full bags of litter, Adopt a Street will pick up and dispose of your collected litter. You can request this service when you report your cleanup. If you have less than 2 full bags of litter, we have additional recommendations for getting your bags picked up referenced in our FAQs.

Please place the bags on the edge of the sidewalk nearest to the street and out of the way of pedestrians. Note, we CANNOT pick up bags on private property.

Contact Us

Public Utilities

Andrew Lee, General Manager and CEO
Address: 700 5th Avenue, Suite 4900, Seattle, WA, 98104
Mailing Address: PO Box 34018, Seattle, WA, 98124-5177
Phone: (206) 684-3000
SPUCustomerService@seattle.gov

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Seattle Public Utilities (SPU) is comprised of three major direct-service providing utilities: the Water Utility, the Drainage and Wastewater Utility, and the Solid Waste Utility.