Jennifer Scacco and Barry Conant work hard to keep Rio Rancho beautiful and they want you to help them.

Conant, the Keep Rio Rancho Beautiful specialist, and Scacco, the program’s coordinator, say keeping the city beautiful is easier than you think.

Conant and Scacco said some people dump their trash in the mesas. They’ve found household appliances and other bulky items. “It is extremely important to our sustainability to partner up with other nonprofits and organizations to not only benefit residents, but also organizations,” Conant said.

To cut down on the illegal dumping, Keep Rio Rancho Beautiful holds special events throughout the year to provide residents a place to dump unwanted material.

KRRB held its America Recycles Program earlier this month at Wal-Mart. More than 400 residents came out to show their support.

In addition to cleaning the environment, several nonprofit groups and businesses received recycled items that help them with their projects.

Storehouse West received 99 cell phones. St. Felix Pantry received 40 pounds of food and 1,050 pounds of clothing. Shining Stars Preschool received 61 children’s books. Firestone received 122 tires. Bolton Iron Works received 22 propane tanks. Keep Rio Rancho Beautiful hauled in 4,200 pounds of dismantled metal items, 15,900 pounds of appliance metals, excluding Freon items, 2,200 cardboard and other fiber items, and 45 pounds of aluminum cans and 175 pounds of mixed plastics. All were recycled. Kiwanis received 108 ink and printer cartridges, 1-800-GOT-JUNK received 12,260 pounds of metal items with Freon, the Lion’s Club collected 592 pairs of eye glasses and Enchantment Electronics Recycling received 88,750 pounds of electronics.

Looking at the sheer number of items recycled, Conant said it is important to have these programs so residents can do the right thing and recycle.

Keep Rio Rancho Beautiful is a department within the City of Rio Rancho and is funded through taxpayer dollars and grants.

For more information, call Conant at 896-8729.