Park clean-up effort underway

HARTFORD, Conn. (WTNH) -- Hartford is kicking off a week-long initiative to clean up the city's parks.
    
The city of Hartford is getting ready for the summer season by sprucing up all the parks, but this has been a strange 6 months for parks all over the state and especially in Hartford.

Before the sun even came up, the public works crews were up getting Hartford's Hyland Park ready for the summer. Picking up the trash and even putting out new hand-painted trash cans.

"We're also doing cleanups at Colt Park, Elizabeth Park and many of our other parks to make sure that those also are brought up to speed," said Hartford Mayor Pedro Segarra.

This kicks off a week-long celebration of the capital city's parks, but really it's been a weird 6 months.

The freak Autumn Nor'easter destroyed more than 3,000 trees in Hartford's parks.

"With the storm that we had in October there was a lot of destruction, so obviously we have a lot of new planting to get in gear," said Heather Dionne, a city Forrester.

The weeks of drought threatened to do more damage, but with this week's rain, the fields are looking lush and ready for kids to play on them.

"We really have a fabulous resource for young people to get out and get involved in leagues, and soccer programs and cricket programs and fishing programs," said Craig Mergins from the Parks Commission.

As if the parks weren't green enough, new solar powered trash cans make the space even more environmentally friendly.

"They can take on a lot more trash, which makes the parks neater," explained Hartford DPW Director Kevin Burnham. "Also, people don't tend to dump their household trash there."

It's great to have those, but if you love the art on the less high tech trash cans, there's an exhibit of oil drum art later this week. Click here to learn more.

Click here to learn more about the clean up effort.