Photo via the LA Stormwater website

While you’re enjoying this weekend’s Echo Park Community Parade, you may notice some new-ish signs donning the light poles around Echo Park. Lotus flower-themed anti-litter banners have returned to the community, reminding you to “Love Echo Park Lake, Don’t Litter.” The signs will be around for about 60 days, and are the same ones that were installed back in 2009.

A beautification grant from Council District 13 Eric Garcetti’s office has given grassroots organization Echo Park Trash Abatement Program (TAP), led by Ida Talalla, the tools to keep beautification of the neighborhood on the forefront. TAP just recently unveiled the neighborhood’s first solar trash compactor (Big Belly) this Fall. And last Saturday morning, TAP organized a community cleanup of Sunset Boulevard, an effort which received a matching grant from Garcetti’s office for the banners.

The Eastsider LA asked the question in late October when the banner proposal came up in the City Council: Is it too late for Echo Park Lake? For one thing, the lake is in the middle of a $65-80 million renovation project that literally unearthed a plethora of muck-covered goodies. But one thing that Echo Park TAP will always remind us is that trash on Sunset Boulevard, on Echo Park Avenue, or even up on Glendale Boulevard ends up in the lake, drained or not. Keeping the neighborhood clean is one positive step toward keep Los Angeles watersheds clean!

And it helps – according to the LA Stormwater Blog, TAP and Los Angeles’ Conservation Corps’ Clean and Green collected more than 60 bags of trash last Saturday. Let’s hope the signs help deter some littering so that the next TAP cleanup (on January 7, 2012) volunteers don’t have to work so hard.