The Nova Scotia Adopt-A-Highway program allows volunteers to help their communities by collecting litter and beautifying roadsides and interchange areas.

This program started in Nova Scotia in 1992 with an initial 18 volunteer groups. Today, we have over 160 groups who have adopted more than 1000 kilometres of secondary road and fourteen Interchange areas (Exit Ramps) throughout the province. On average, 5-6 thousand bags of garbage and recyclable materials are picked up along adopted Nova Scotia highways each year.

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Why adopt?

It's a free, easy way for groups to help their communities, make a visible impact and earn some well-deserved recognition.

How to Adopt:

• Choose a stretch of roadway that you would like to adopt and contact the Adopt-A-Highway website for an application.
• Clean your highway or interchange twice per year; once in the spring and once in the fall.
• Separate your recyclable materials from regular garbage whenever possible.
• Submit your cleanup data to the Adopt-A-Highway office after each clean up.
• Receive two Adopt-A-Highway signs marking either end of the adopted highway section or either side of the adopted interchange, after two seasonal cleanups.

How much of a difference does adopting make?

Motorists respond. Seeing our Adopt-A-Highway signs and our volunteers at work resonates with would-be littering offenders. Research has shown that highways adopted by Adopt-A-Highway Volunteers are generally less littered than those that haven't been adopted.