Keep Phoenix Beautiful: Group cleaning city streets prepares for Super Bowl

PHOENIX - From litter removal to community gardens, Keep Phoenix Beautiful has been improving the city for years.

With the Super Bowl coming up, an army of volunteers are needed - not just to get ready for the big game, but what comes after it.

"We were founded on litter," said Tom Waldeck with Keep Phoenix Beautiful. "Litter's been a problem for years, and it's not going away."

If it makes the city cleaner and prettier, you can bet they played a role.

"There's a four acre vacant lot down the street we take care of," said Waldeck. "We go down once a month to clean it up and make it presentable."

Even during the pandemic, the group handed out kits for people to clean their streets, and they still do it today.

"[It's] to encourage you to clean up your own neighborhood, neighborhood park, whatever," Waldeck said. "We even have kid sizes of litter grabber, so make it a family affair, take your kids out and pick up litter around the neighborhood."

But now, a messy affair is coming to Arizona's capital. The Super Bowl will take a lot of cleaning, but also a lot of saving.

"The Super Bowl brings in massive amounts of stuff they don't want to take back," Waldeck explained. "Things…we use for shade here, the stuff they put on fences with corporate logos, there are 7 miles of that stuff. It used to go into the landfill, but we capture that and use it for our gardens here and in turn pass it on to other garden projects around the state."

Waldeck says they use items from past Super Bowls as shaded areas.

They'll keep it up as they have for years and years: keeping Phoenix beautiful.