NEW YORK -- Sanitation crews scooped up 154.3 tons of litter left by Earth Day celebrants in Central Park by midday Monday and were still cleaning up after what the city parks commissioner called a 'fabulous event.'
Altogether, an estimated 1 million participants in the Sunday observance in various parts of the city left more than 165 tons of trash behind them, according to police, sanitation and parks department spokesmen.
'It's massive,' said Skip Garrett of the Parks Department. 'Our cleanup force has taken 150 tons of trash and 4.3 tons of material left in recycling receptacles from Central Park this morning and there's still a hell of a lot of cleaning up to do.'
Garrett said the five-hour combined rally and pop music concert on the mall's Great Lawn drew 750,000 people, the largest crowd since a July 4 concert by the New York Philharmonic attracted 800,000 to the same area in 1986.
No figure for the amount of trash left by the Philharmonic audience was available, but Parks Commisioner Betsy Gotbaum had nothing but praise for the Earth Day crowd
'They picked up after themselves,' she commented. 'They are to be congratulated. In conclusion, it was a fabulous event.'
Garrett said debris spilled over from the vast green into neighboring wooded areas and even found its way into trees, which some celebrants climbed to get a better view of the festivities. He said 50 park sanitationmen worked throughout the night and 20 were assigned to the project on Monday.
'There is some overtime involved,' he said. 'I don't know just how much at this point.'
Another Earth Day observance, an all-day street fair for environmental organizations and food vendors on Sixth Avenue, resulted in 8 tons of refuse left along the 17-block venue and in litter baskets, according to Vito Turso, spokesman for the sanitation department.
'These people didn't leave as much behind as people who attend food fairs do,' Turso said. 'It was an environmentally sensitive crowd.'
Turso said 7.7 additional tons of recyclables were collected from special stations set up Sudnay in Central Park, Queens and Brooklyn, including 4 tons of mental and glass and 3.7 tons of paper.
